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Molecular Crystals and Liquid Crystals, Vol.475, 233-245, 2007
Shear flow of a ferronematic in a magnetic field
We examine the effect of shear flow on the orientational phase transitions induced by magnetic field in ferronematics. Continuum approach based on the generalized Leslie-Ericksen theory is used to describe the dynamics of a ferronematic. We consider the steady state shear flow of unbounded ferronematic with constant velocity gradient in the uniform magnetic field. Stationary solutions for the director and the magnetization are obtained as functions of the magnetic field strength for the different material parameters. Our results show that shear flow can leads to the shift of the field thresholds or to a "smoothing" of the transitions in a ferronematic.