Existence and Stability of Kayaking Orbits for Nematic Liquid Crystals in Simple Shear Flow

We use geometric methods of equivariant dynamical systems to address a long-standing open problem in the theory of nematic liquid crystals, namely a proof of the existence and asymptotic stability of kayaking periodic orbits in response to steady shear flow. These are orbits for which the principal axis of orientation of the molecular field (the director) rotates out of the plane of shear and around the vorticity axis. With a small parameter attached to the symmetric part of the velocity gradient, the problem can be viewed as a symmetry-breaking bifurcation from an orbit of the rotation group $$\mathrm{SO}(3)$$ SO ( 3 ) that contains both logrolling (equilibrium) and tumbling (periodic rotation of the director within the plane of shear) regimes as well as a continuum of neutrally stable kayaking orbits. The results turn out to require expansion to second order in the perturbation parameter.