Search

In the statistical mechanics approach to liquid-state theory, understanding the role of the intermolecular potential in determining thermodynamic and structural properties is crucial. The Fisher--Widom (FW) line, which separates regions in the temperature vs density plane where the decay of the total correlation function is monotonic or oscillatory, provides insights into the dominance of the attractive or repulsive part of the interactions. Stopper et al. have recently conjectured [J. Chem. Phys. \textbf{151}, 014501 (2019)] that the line of vanishing excess isothermal compressibility approximates the FW line in simple fluids. Here, we investigate this conjecture using the Jagla potential and also explore the line of vanishing excess pressure. We employ theoretical approximations and Monte Carlo simulations to study one-dimensional and three-dimensional systems. While exact results for the one-dimensional case do not support the conjecture, our Monte Carlo simulations for the three-dimensional fluid validate it. Our findings not only contribute to the understanding of the relationship between the three transition lines but also provide valuable insights into the thermodynamic and structural behaviour of simple fluids., Comment: 17 pages, 5 figures; v2: addition of the Widom line plus other minor changes. Rull-Abascal Special Issue for Statistical Physics in Spain

Biaxial nematic ($N_B$) liquid crystals have been indicated as promising candidates for the design of next-generation displays with novel electro-optical properties and faster switching times. While at the molecular scale their existence is still under debate, experimental evidence, supported by theory and simulation, has unambiguously proved that suitable colloidal particles can indeed form $N_B$ fluids under specific conditions. While this discovery has sparked a widespread interest in the characterisation of the phase behaviour of $N_B$ liquid crystals, significantly less attention has been devoted to the study of their transport properties. To bridge this gap, by Dynamic Monte Carlo simulations we have investigated the equilibrium dynamics of field-induced $N_B$ phases comprising monodisperse hard cuboids. In particular, we calculated the long-time self-diffusion coefficients of cuboids over a wide range of anisotropies, spanning prolate to oblate geometries. Additionally, we have compared these diffusivities with those that, upon switching the external field off, are measured in the thermodynamically-stable isotropic or uniaxial nematic phases at the same density. Our results indicate that while prolate cuboids diffuse significantly faster in biaxial nematics than in less ordered fluids, we do not observe such an increase with oblate cuboids at high packing fractions. We show that these changes are most likely due to the field-induced freezing of the axes perpendicular to the nematic director, along with a substantial increase in the ordering of the resulting $N_B$ phase., Comment: 11 pages, 6 figures

We study, experimentally, the dynamics of a binary mixture of air-fluidized disks. The disks are chiral since they incorporate a set of blades with constant tilt. Both species are identical except for their blades tilt angle, which is rotated by 180o in the second species. We analyze the phase behavior of the system. Our analysis reveals a wide range of different fluid dynamics, including chiral flow. This chiral flow features in its base state a large vortex. We report, for certain ranges of relative particle density of each species, inversion of the vorticity of this vortex. We discuss on the possible mechanisms behind these chiral flow transitions., Comment: Additional data can be found in: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6647704

Diffusion is a fundamental aspect of transport processes in biological systems, and thus, in the development of life itself. And yet, the diffusive dynamics of active fluids with directed rotation, known as chiral fluids, has not been analyzed in detail so far. Here, we describe the diffusive regimes of a two-dimensional chiral fluid, composed in this case of a set of identical disk-shaped rotors. We found strong experimental evidence of odd diffusion. This odd diffusion emerges in the form of a two-dimensional tensor with an antisymmetric part. In particular, we show that chiral diffusion is complex, featuring transitions between super, quasi-normal, and sub diffusion, and very slowly aging. Moreover, we show that the diffusion tensor elements, including off-diagonal elements; i.e., odd diffusion coefficient, change sign according to flow vorticity. Therefore, the chiral fluid has a self regulated diffusion, controlled by its vorticity., Comment: Accepted in Communications Physics. 8 pages, 4 figures

We study the velocity autocorrelations in an experimental configuration of confined two-dimensional active rotors (disks). We report persistent small scale oscillations in both rotational and translational velocity autocorrelations, with their characteristic frequency increasing as rotational activity increases. While these small oscillations are qualitatively similar in all experiments, we found that, at strong particle rotational activity, the large scale particle spin fluctuations tend to vanish, with the small oscillations around zero persisting in this case, and spins remain predominantly and strongly anti-correlated at longer times. For weaker rotational activity, however, spin fluctuations become increasingly larger and angular velocities remain de-correlated at longer times. We discuss in detail how the autocorrelation oscillations are related to the rotational activity and why this feature is generically a signal of the emergence of chirality in the dynamics of a particulate system., Comment: * Phys. Fluids, to appear (2023) * 11 pages, 8 figures. * For experiments data and movies see https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5141570 * For the original angle tracking code see https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7226254

We study in this work the 2D dynamics of an experimental system of disk-shaped rotors, fluidized by turbulent upflow. Contrary to previous knowledge, our experiments show the same particle chiral geometry can produce flows with different chiralities. In particular, we unveil a conspicuous complex chiral flow, which displays multiple persistent vortexes with either sign, located randomly in the system. This peculiar phase mediates a continuous transition, which takes place as the kinetic energy input increases, from a flow with positive chirality (one vortex rotating in the same direction as particles spin) to a flow with negative chirality (one vortex in opposite sense to particle spin). We find that these surprising transitions are determined by the specific state of the statistical correlations between particle spin and translational velocity. We discuss how these correlations are determined in turn by the combined action of a series of mechanisms (for instance, heat dissipation at the boundaries, particle activity, average kinetic energy...), several of which are unveiled here., Comment: 15 pages, 6 figures (including supplementary material). To appear in Phys. Rev. Research (2022)

We study in this work a system of granular disks enclosed in a rectangular region. Granular disks are arranged, at high particle density, in a hexagonal lattice. Specifically, we are interested in the conditions for mechanical signal transmission. Two different potentials are considered. Our results are obtained by means of soft disks computer simulations. We analytically determine the eigenfrequencies spectra of the system from the corresponding Hessian matrix. Alternatively, the eigenfrequencies can also be obtained from the time evolution of molecular dynamics simulations. Previous works have shown that mechanical signal transmission in granular matter can be used to develop acoustic switches. Our results reveal that the working range of the granular switch changes dramatically for different interaction models. In particular, strong anisotropies in signal transmission may appear for certain interparticle forces., Comment: Conference proceeding,7 pages

We perform experiments with a granular system that consists of a collection of identical hollow spheres (ping-pong balls). Particles rest on a horizontal metallic grid and are confined within a circular region. Fluidization is achieved by means of a turbulent air current coming from below. Air flow is adjusted so that the balls do not elevate over the grid, as an approach to 2D dynamics. With a high-speed camera, we take images of the system. From these images we can infer horizontal particle positions and velocities by means of particle-tracking algorithms. With the obtained data we analyze: a) the systematic measurement error in the determination of positions and velocities from our digital images; b) the degree of homogeneity achieved in our experiments (which depends on possible deviations of the grid from the horizontal and on the homogeneity of turbulent air wakes). Interestingly, we have observed evidences of crystallization at high enough densities., Comment: Conference proceeding, Traffic and Granular Flow 2019

Previous experimental and theoretical evidence has shown that convective flow may appear in granular fluids if subjected to a thermal gradient and gravity (Rayleigh-B\'enard-type convection). In contrast to this, we present here evidence of gravity-free thermal convection in a granular gas, with no presence of external thermal gradients either. Convection is here maintained steady by internal gradients due to dissipation and thermal sources at the same temperature. The granular gas is composed by identical disks and is enclosed in a rectangular region. Our results are obtained by means of an event-driven algorithm for inelastic hard disks., Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures. Supplementary material only in published in journal version

The structural properties of the Jagla fluid are studied by Monte Carlo (MC) simulations, numerical solutions of integral equation theories, and the (semi-analytical) rational-function approximation (RFA) method. In the latter case, the results are obtained from the assumption (supported by our MC simulations) that the Jagla potential and a potential with a hard core plus an appropriate piecewise constant function lead to practically the same cavity function. The predictions obtained for the radial distribution function, $g(r)$, from this approach are compared against MC simulations and integral equations for the Jagla model, and also for the limiting cases of the triangle-well potential and the ramp potential, with a general good agreement. The analytical form of the RFA in Laplace space allows us to describe the asymptotic behavior of $g(r)$ in a clean way and compare it with MC simulations for representative states with oscillatory or monotonic decay. The RFA predictions for the Fisher--Widom and Widom lines of the Jagla fluid are obtained., Comment: 12 pages, 10 figures; v2: structure factor included

We study the interfacial phenomenology of a fluid in contact with a microstructured substrate within the mean-field approximation. The sculpted substrate is a one-dimensional array of infinitely long grooves of sinusoidal section of periodicity length L and amplitude A. The system is modelled using the Landau-Ginzburg functional, with fluid-substrate couplings which correspond to either first-order or critical wetting for a flat substrate. We investigate the effect of the roughness of the substrate in the interfacial phenomenology, paying special attention to filling and wetting phenomena, and compare the results with the predictions of the macroscopic and interfacial Hamiltonian theories. At bulk coexistence, for values of L much larger than the bulk correlation, we observe first-order filling transitions between dry and partially filled interfacial states, which extend off-coexistence, ending at a critical point; and wetting transitions between partially filled and completely wet interfacial states with the same order as for the flat substrate (if first-order, wetting extends off-coexistence in a prewetting line). On the other hand, if the groove height is of order of the correlation length, only wetting transitions between dry and complete wet states are observed. However, their characteristics depend on the order of the wetting transition for the flat substrate. So, if it is first-order, the wetting transition temperature for the rough substrate is reduced with respect to the wetting transition temperature for a flat substrate, and coincides with the Wenzel law prediction for very shallow substrates. On the contrary, if the flat substrate wetting transition is continuous, the roughness does not change the wetting temperature., Comment: 42 pages, 23 figures