In equilibrium liquid crystals, chirality leads to a variety of spectacular three-dimensional structures, but chiral and achiral phases with the same broken continuous symmetries have identical long-time, large-scale dynamics. In this Letter, starting from active model $H^{*}$, the general hydrodynamics of a pseudoscalar in a momentum-conserving fluid, we demonstrate that chirality qualitatively modifies the dynamics of layered liquid crystals in active systems in both two and three dimensions due to an active “odder” elasticity. In three dimensions, we demonstrate that the hydrodynamics of active cholesterics differs fundamentally from smectic-A liquid crystals, unlike their equilibrium counterpart. This distinction can be used to engineer a columnar array of vortices, with an antiferromagnetic vorticity alignment, that can be switched on and off by external strain. A two-dimensional chiral layered state—an array of lines on an incompressible, freestanding film of chiral active fluid with a preferred normal direction—is generically unstable. However, this instability can be tuned in easily realizable experimental settings when the film is either on a substrate or in an ambient fluid.

• Received 11 January 2021
• Accepted 28 May 2021
• Corrected 23 June 2021

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.126.248001