Abstract
Using molecular dynamics simulations, we study a driven, nonadditive binary mixture of spherical particles confined to move in two dimensions and immersed in an explicit solvent consisting of point particles with purely repulsive interactions. We show that, without a drive, the mixture of spherical particles phase separates and coarsens with kinetics consistent with an Ising-like conserved dynamics. Conversely, when the drive is applied, the coarsening is arrested and the system develops large density fluctuations. We show that the drive creates domains of a characteristic size which decreases with an increasing force. Furthermore, we find that these domains are anisotropic and can be oriented either parallel or perpendicular to the drive direction. Finally, we connect our findings to existing theories of strongly-driven systems, pointing out the importance of introducing the explicit solvent particles to break the Galilean invariance of the system.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 033006 |
| Journal | New Journal of Physics |
| Volume | 25 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Mar 1 2023 |
Funding
MOL thanks R K P Zia, R Dickman, and I Schmidt for helpful discussions. MOL and DB are supported through the National Science Foundation, Division of Molecular and Cellular Biosciences (MCB), under Contract No. 2219289. Computational support was provided by the University of Tennessee. MD simulations research was supported by the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences (CNMS), which is a US Department of Energy, Office of Science User Facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. This research used resources of the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF) at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which is supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725.
Keywords
- coarsening
- colloids
- non-equilibrium statistical mechanics
- phase separation
- phase transition
- strongly driven systems