GILLI , Jean-Marc

We study the zigzag instability coarsening of splay-bend walls formed in a nematic liquid crystal under external fields. The vertexes of zigzag can be considered as kinks in a one-dimensional order parameter system and the geometrical constraints associated with the necessary equal length sum of zig and zag segments impose a conserved quantity...

ILCC2002 Conference Proceedings

The dynamics of a damped pendulum driven by a constant torque is studied experimentally and theoretically. We use this simple device to demonstrate some generic dynamical behavior including the loss of equilibrium or saddle node bifurcation with or without hysteresis and the homoclinic bifurcation. A qualitative analysis is developed to...

As stated by Lord Kelvin a long time ago, 'It seems to me that the test of "Do we or do we not understand a particular point in physics?" is, "Can we make a mechanical model of it?"' What is the relationship between the propagation of a light wave in a Kerr medium in the presence of a magnetic field and the oscillation of a spherical pendulum...

What is the relationship between the propagation of a light wave in a Kerr medium in the presence of a magnetic field and the oscillation of a spherical pendulum on a rotating platform? We apply the general formalism of amplitude equations in order to explore both the nonlinear and the rotation-induced precession of these optical and mechanical...