Perturbative expansion for the half-integer rectilinear disclination line in the Landau-de Gennes theory

The structure of the half-integer rectilinear disclination line within the framework of the Landau-de Gennes effective theory of nematic liquid crystals is investigated. The consistent perturbative expansion is constructed for the case of L2 6= 0. It turns out that such expansion can be performed around only a discrete subset of an infinite set of the degenerate zeroth order solutions. These solutions correspond to the positive and negative wedge disclination lines and to four configurations of the twist disclination line. The first order corrections to both the order parameter field as well as the free energy of the disclination lines have been found. The results for the free energy are compared with the ones obtained in the Frank-Oseen-Zocher director description. PACS: 61.30.Jf, 11.27.+d Preprint TPJU-17/2002 Marian Smoluchowski Institute of Physics, Jagiellonian University, Reymonta 4, 30-059 Cracow, Poland. H. Niewodniczański Institute of Nuclear Physics, Radzikowskiego 152, 31-342 Cracow, Poland. 1