Physical Review Letters· 2013Q1
Structure and Dynamics of a Phase-Separating Active Colloidal Fluid
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- 2013year
Short summary
A minimal model of active colloidal spheres (self-propelled Brownian spheres with excluded volume interaction) undergoes a continuous phase transition, separating into dense and dilute phases whose concentrations are solely determined by activity.
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Key points
- Active colloidal fluid separates into dense and dilute phases via a continuous phase transition.
- Phase separation concentrations are determined solely by the system's activity.
- The dense phase, an 'active solid,' shows crystalline structural signatures.
- Anomalous dynamics, including superdiffusive motion, are observed in the dense phase.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Abstract
We examine a minimal model for an active colloidal fluid in the form of self-propelled Brownian spheres that interact purely through excluded volume with no aligning interaction. Using simulations and analytic modeling, we quantify the phase diagram and separation kinetics. We show that this nonequilibrium active system undergoes an analog of an equilibrium continuous phase transition, with a binodal curve beneath which the system separates into dense and dilute phases whose concentrations depend only on activity. The dense phase is a unique material that we call an active solid, which exhibits the structural signatures of a crystalline solid near the crystal-hexatic transition point, and anomalous dynamics including superdiffusive motion on intermediate time scales.
The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Physical Review Letters, 2013 · DOI ↗
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Field: Condensed Matter Physics
Condensed Matter PhysicsPhysics and Astronomy