Propagation of Walls in Liquid Crystals: The 'Soliton Switch'

The propagation of simple walls in liquid crystals and the propagation of domain walls in magnetic chains can both be modelled by the Sine-Gordon equation with damping. However, physically the two systems are very different; therefore, the essential physics is contained in two different limits of the Sine-Gordon equation: while many time dependent properties of magnetic systems can be understood in terms of nearly freely moving solitons (zero damping limit), those of liquid crystals can be properly analyzed in the infinite damping limit.