Statics and dynamics of two-dimensional vortex liquid crystals

With numerical simulations we examine static and dynamic properties of two-dimensional vortices with anisotropic interactions. We find evidence for a smectic-A phase in the absence of pinning. Quenched disorder can induce a smectic-type state even at $T=0$. When an external drive is applied, a variety of novel anisotropic dynamical flow states with distinct voltage signatures occur, including elastic depinning in the hard direction and plastic depinning in the easy direction. We compare our work to recent experiments on two-dimensional colloids with anisotropic interactions. We also discuss the implications of the anisotropic transport for other systems which exhibit depinning phenomena, such as stripes and electron liquid crystals