Short-range and long-range correlations in driven dense colloidal mixtures in narrow pores.

Abstract

The system of a driven dense colloid mixture in a tube with diameter comparable to particle size is modeled by a generalization of the asymmetric simple exclusion process (ASEP) model. The generalization goes in two directions: relaxing the exclusion constraint by allowing several (but few) particles on a site and by considering two species of particles, which differ in size and transport coefficients. We calculate the nearest-neighbor correlations using a variant of the Kirkwood approximation and show by comparison with numerical simulations that the approximation provides quite accurate results. However, for long-range correlations, we show that the Kirkwood approximation is useless, as it predicts exponential decay of the density-density correlation function with distance, while simulation data indicate that the decay is algebraic. For the one-component system, we show that the decay is governed by a power law with universal exponent close to 2. In the two-component system, the correlation function behaves in a more complicated manner: Its sign oscillates but the envelope decays again very slowly and the decay is compatible with a power law with an exponent somewhat lower than 2. Therefore, our generalization of the ASEP belongs to a different universality class from the ensemble of generalized ASEP models which are mappable to zero-range processes.