ABSTRACT
The main focus of the present paper is on studying the nematic-smectic- A phase boundary of an ideally oriented Gay-Berne system. The phase diagram is determined by means of an isothermal-isobaric Monte Carlo simulation. The results are compared with predictions of the local density functional expanded up to second and third order in the one-particle distribution function. It is shown that generally the second-order expansion does not give satisfactory predictions for smectics. Going beyond the leading order yields good quantitative agreement at moderate densities. With increasing density the relative error of the local density functional calculations increases, but usually does not exceed 10% in densities. We conclude that the density functional approach could be competitive to time-consuming simulations in determining phase diagrams of spatially and orientationally ordered liquid crystalline structures.
