Bias- and bath-mediated pairing of particles driven through a quiescent medium

Details Bias- and bath-mediated pairing of particles driven through a quiescent medium Bias- and bath-mediated pairing of particles driven through a quiescent medium

2010-10-13

arxiv.org/abs/1010.2684v1

Soft Matter, 2011, 7, 993-1000

Physics

Condensed Matter

Soft Condensed Matter

9 pages; accepted for publication in Soft Matter

Scientific paper

10.1039/c0sm00465k

A particle driven by an external force in a molecular crowding environment - a quiescent bath of other particles, makes their spatial distribution inhomogeneous: the bath particles accumulate in front of the biased particle (BP) and are depleted behind. In fact, a BP travels together with the inhomogeneity it creates. A natural question is what will happen with two BPs when they appear sufficiently close to each other such that the inhomogeneities around each of them start to interfere? In quest for the answer we examine here, via Monte Carlo simulations, the dynamics of two BPs in a lattice gas of bath particles. We observe that for a sufficiently dense medium, surprisingly, both BPs spend most of the time together which signifies that the interference of the microstructural inhomogeneities results in effectively attractive interactions between them. Such statistical pairing of BPs minimizes the size of the inhomogeneity and hence reduces the frictional drag force exerted on the BPs by the medium. As a result, in some configurations the center-of-mass of a pair of BPs propagates faster than a single isolated BP. These jamming-induced forces are very different from fundamental physical interactions, exist only in presence of an external force, and require the presence of a quiescent bath to mediate the interactions between the driven particles.

Affiliated with

Also associated with

No associations

Rating

Bias- and bath-mediated pairing of particles driven through a quiescent medium does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with Bias- and bath-mediated pairing of particles driven through a quiescent medium, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Bias- and bath-mediated pairing of particles driven through a quiescent medium will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

Comments { 0 }

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-226888