An anti-nematic phase of liquid crystals

Using a Corner-type potential for the interaction between two monoaxial molecules, a simple equation has been derived for the angular dependence of the single particle distribution function. We investigate this equation for values of the molecular parameters not considered before. The usual nematic-isotropic phase transition is found. It turns out, however, that below the transition temperature the distribution function describing the orientation of the molecules with respect to the director now has two maxima. The first maximum, which defines the director, corresponds to a preferred parallel orientation of the molecules. The second maximum shows that orientations perpendicular to the director also occur with high probability. This effect is so strong that of the order parameters 〈P2〉 and 〈P4〉 the latter is dominant while the first is an order of magnitude smaller.