Full-tensor alignment criteria for sheared nematic polymers

The shear problem for nematic polymers consists in characterizing all stable stationary orientational distributions, steady and unsteady, versus shear rate and material parameters. Continuum theory [cf. Leslie (1968), Ericksen (1960)] provides formulas for the shear response of liquid crystals in terms of a single viscosity ratio, the Leslie tumbling parameter λL. Kuzuu and Doi (1983, 1984) developed a weak-flow asymptotic analysis of kinetic theory, which gives a molecular basis for all continuum theory parameters. In this paper, we develop a mesoscopic extension of the Kuzuu–Doi method, applicable to any tensor model. Our method yields orientational and rheological features of nematic polymers in weak shear with explicit formulas, parametrized by the parameters of the second-moment tensor model. This provides an explicit mesoscopic theory solution to the problem posed by Marrucci and Greco (1993) of how orientational degeneracy of quiescent nematic equilibria breaks in weak shear, leaving a finite set o...