Onsager's spherocylinders revisited

Abstract

Since the work of Onsager, systems of hard spherocylinders have played a special role as the theoretician’s “ideal” nematic
\nliquid crystals. It is, however, well-known that the Onsager theory is only a good description for extremely nonspherical
\nparticles. A quantitative measure for the range of validity of this theory is obtained from direct numerical calculation of
\nthe third through fifth virial coefficients of hard spherocylinders with length-to-width ratios, LID, between 1 and lo6. The
\nphase diagram of spherocylinders with “realistic” LID ratios can only be obtained by computer simulation. We report molecular
\ndynamics and Monte Carlo simulations for spherocylinders with LID = 5. These calculations suggest that the oldest model
\nfor a hard-core nematic may, in fact, have a smectic liquid-crygalline phase as well.
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\nIncludes an erratum, published in vol; 92; issue 18, 1988, - p. 5314