Antiswarming: Structure and dynamics of repulsive chemically active particles.

Yan, Wen; Brady, John F · Phys Rev E · 2017

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

Chemically active Brownian particles with surface catalytic reactions may repel each other due to diffusiophoretic interactions in the reaction and product concentration fields. The system behavior can be described by a "chemical" coupling parameter Γ_{c} that compares the strength of diffusiophoretic repulsion to Brownian motion, and by a mapping to the classical electrostatic one component plasma (OCP) system. When confined to a constant-volume domain, body-centered cubic (bcc) crystals spontaneously form from random initial configurations when the repulsion is strong enough to overcome Brownian motion. Face-centered cubic (fcc) crystals may also be stable. The "melting point" of the "liquid-to-crystal transition" occurs at Γ_{c}≈140 for both bcc and fcc lattices.