We present a theoretical and numerical study of the coupling of orientational and positional order in a smectic-A phase of hard rods. Our density functional analysis suggests a strong spatial modulation of the orientation distribution function. Computer simulations confirm this prediction and show that the modulation is due to the presence of a finite concentration of particles positioned between smectic layers and oriented perpendicular to the director. This peculiar modulation of the orientational order should be experimentally observable in lyotropic smectic liquid crystals.
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Roij et al. (1995) studied this question.
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