Statistical theory of the thermodynamic and structural properties of nematic liquid crystals with intermolecular correlations taken into account

Correlation effects in liquid crystals are studied with the help of the statistical method of angular distributions. The approach is used to develop a statistical theory of the thermodynamic and structural properties of nematic liquid crystals. The molecular interaction characteristics of the crystals are expressed in terms of mean force potentials which satisfy a nonlinear integral equation. This equation is solved numerically and results are given for nematic polyacrylamide. The method can be used to calculate a wide spectrum of macroscopic characteristics, such as the dielectric constant, and correlation functions of different orders, including correlations between the angular and spatial variables.