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Science 18 February 1994:
Vol. 263. no. 5149, pp. 943 - 945
DOI: 10.1126/science.263.5149.943
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Articles

The Cosmological Kibble Mechanism in the Laboratory: String Formation in Liquid Crystals

Mark J. Bowick 1, L. Chandar 1, E. A. Schiff 1, and Ajit M. Srivastava 2

1 Department of Physics, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY 13244-1130, USA.
2 Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA.

The production of strings (disclination lines and loops) has been observed by means of the Kibble mechanism of domain (bubble) formation in the isotropic-nematic phase transition of the uniaxial nematic liquid crystal 4-cyano-4'-n-pentylbiphenyl. The number of strings formed per bubble is about 0.6. This value is in reasonable agreement with a numerical simulation of the experiment in which the Kibble mechanism is used for the order parameter space of a uniaxial nematic liquid crystal.

Submitted on October 13, 1993
Accepted on December 3, 1993


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