Berlin 2012 – scientific programme

Parts | Days | Selection | Search | Updates | Downloads | Help

CPP: Fachverband Chemische Physik und Polymerphysik

CPP 28: Colloids and Complex Liquids I

CPP 28.2: Talk

Wednesday, March 28, 2012, 15:30–15:45, C 130

Zigzag transition and nonequilibrium explosions in a one-dimensional colloidal crystal — •Arthur Straube¹, Lutz Schimansky-Geier¹, Roel Dullens², and Ard Louis³ — ¹Department of Physics, Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany — ²Physical and Theoretical Chemistry Laboratory, Department of Chemistry, University of Oxford, UK — ³Rudolf Peierls Centre for Theoretical Physics, University of Oxford, UK

We study the equilibrium zigzag transition and nonequilibrium pattern formation that emerges when magnetically repelling colloids, trapped individually in a line by optical tweezers, are abruptly released, forming colloidal explosions [EPL 94, 48008 (2011); J. Chem. Phys., submitted]. We show experimentally and explain theoretically why for certain nonharmonic traps the equilibrium zigzag transition is impossible. Colloidal explosions demonstrate a nonequilibrium zigzag pattern that persists even when magnetic interactions are much weaker than those that break the linear symmetry in equilibrium. Theory and computer simulations, including hydrodynamic interactions, quantitatively describe these phenomena both in and out of equilibrium.