Hydrodynamic interactions in a binary-mixture colloidal monolayer.

Abstract

A colloidal monolayer embedded in the bulk of a fluid experiences a "compressible", long-range hydrodynamic interaction which, far from boundaries, leads to a breakdown of Fick's law above a well-defined length scale, showing up as anomalous collective diffusion. We extend the model to study the effect of the hydrodynamic interaction on a monolayer formed by two types of particles. The most interesting finding is a new regime, in the limit of very dissimilar kinds of particles, where the effective dynamics of the concentration of "big" (slow) particles appears to obey Fick's law at large scales, but the corresponding collective diffusivity is completely determined, through hydrodynamic coupling, by the diffusivity of the "small" (fast) particles.