Decay of skeins of dislocations in cholesterics, rewiring of Conway’s tangles into necklaces of bangles

Key Points

• Dislocations in cholesteric materials untie as a result of phase transition dynamics, leading to new configurations.
• Phase transitions between normal to superfluid and isotropic to nematic are critical in the untangling processes.
• This process can be explained via knot theory, illustrating the complex interactions within these materials.
• Understanding these dynamics of vortices and disclinations may have applications in advanced materials science.