Hard models for particle interactions have played a crucial role in the understanding of the
structure of condensed matter. In particular, they help to explain the formation of oriented …

Recent experiments report that the long-looked-for thermotropic biaxial nematic phase has
been finally detected in some thermotropic liquid crystalline systems. Inspired by these …

The basis of our theoretical understanding of statistical mechanics of dilute gases dates
back to the nineteenth century. The atomistic description of crystalline solids originated in …

In the nematic liquid crystal phase, rod-shaped molecules move randomly but remain
essentially parallel to one another. Biaxial nematics, which were first predicted in 1970 by …

The phase diagram of fluids of hard biaxial ellipsoids with c/a= 10 and b/a∈{1, 10}, where a,
b, and c are the semi-axes, has been studied using computer simulation. Four …

We consider a fluid of hard boomerangs, each composed of two hard spherocylinders joined
at their ends at an angle ψ. The resulting particle is nonconvex and biaxial. The occurence …

The structure of liquids and liquid crystals is largely determined by the hard core repulsion
between the constituent particles. In the case of liquid crystals, Onsager was the first to show …

We investigate interfacial and capillary phenomena in a simple model for a fluid of hard
rods, viz. the Zwanzig model, in which the orientations of rectangular blocks are restricted to …

Inspired by the observations of a remarkably stable biaxial nematic phase [van den Pol et
al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 258301 (2009) PRLTAO 0031-9007 10.1103/PhysRevLett …

Inspired by recent claims that compounds composed of V-shaped molecules can exhibit the
elusive biaxial nematic phase, we have developed a generic simulation model for such …