No Arabic abstract
We use a two-level simulation method to analyse the critical point associated with demixing of binary hard sphere mixtures. The method exploits an accurate coarse-grained model with two-body and three-body effective interactions. Using this model within the two-level methodology allows computation of properties of the full (fine-grained) mixture. The critical point is located by computing the probability distribution for the number of large particles in the grand canonical ensemble, and matching to the universal form for the $3d$ Ising universality class. The results have a strong and unexpected dependence on the size ratio between large and small particles, which is related to three-body effective interactions, and the geometry of the underlying hard sphere packings.
Non-Newtonian transport properties of an inertial suspension of inelastic rough hard spheres under simple shear flow are determined from the Boltzmann kinetic equation. The influence of the interstitial gas on rough hard spheres is modeled via a Fokker-Planck generalized equation for rotating spheres accounting for the coupling of both the translational and rotational degrees of freedom of grains with the background viscous gas. The generalized Fokker-Planck term is the sum of two ordinary Fokker-Planck differential operators in linear $mathbf{v}$ and angular $boldsymbol{omega}$ velocity space. As usual, each Fokker-Planck operator is constituted by a drag force term (proportional to $mathbf{v}$ and/or $boldsymbol{omega}$) plus a stochastic Langevin term defined in terms of the background temperature $T_text{ex}$. The Boltzmann equation is solved by two different but complementary approaches: (i) by means of Grads moment method, and (ii) by using a Bhatnagar-Gross-Krook (BGK)-type kinetic model adapted to inelastic rough hard spheres. As occurs in the case of emph{smooth} inelastic hard spheres, our results show that both the temperature and the non-Newtonian viscosity increase drastically with increasing the shear rate (discontinuous shear thickening effect) while the fourth-degree velocity moments also exhibit an $S$-shape. In particular, while high levels of roughness may slightly attenuate the jump of the viscosity in comparison to the smooth case, the opposite happens for the rotational temperature. As an application of these results, a linear stability analysis of the steady simple shear flow solution is also carried out showing that there are regions of the parameter space where the steady solution becomes linearly unstable.
Population annealing is a sequential Monte Carlo scheme well-suited to simulating equilibrium states of systems with rough free energy landscapes. Here we use population annealing to study a binary mixture of hard spheres. Population annealing is a parallel version of simulated annealing with an extra resampling step that ensures that a population of replicas of the system represents the equilibrium ensemble at every packing fraction in an annealing schedule. The algorithm and its equilibration properties are described and results are presented for a glass-forming fluid composed of a 50/50 mixture of hard spheres with diameter ratio of 1.4:1. For this system, we obtain precise results for the equation of state in the glassy regime up to packing fractions $varphi approx 0.60$ and study deviations from the BMCSL equation of state. For higher packing fractions, the algorithm falls out of equilibrium and a free volume fit predicts jamming at packing fraction $varphi approx 0.667$. We conclude that population annealing is an effective tool for studying equilibrium glassy fluids and the jamming transition.
We simulate the motion of spherical particles in a phase-separating binary mixture. By combining cell dynamical equations with Langevin dynamics for particles, we show that the addition of hard particles significantly changes both the speed and the morphology of the phase separation. At the late stage of the spinodal decomposition process, particles significantly slow down the domain growth, in qualitative agreement with earlier experimental data.
A system of hard spheres exhibits physics that is controlled only by their density. This comes about because the interaction energy is either infinite or zero, so all allowed configurations have exactly the same energy. The low density phase is liquid, while the high density phase is crystalline, an example of order by disorder as it is driven purely by entropic considerations. Here we study a family of hard spin models, which we call hardcore spin models, where we replace the translational degrees of freedom of hard spheres with the orientational degrees of freedom of lattice spins. Their hardcore interaction serves analogously to divide configurations of the many spin system into allowed and disallowed sectors. We present detailed results on the square lattice in $d=2$ for a set of models with $mathbb{Z}_n$ symmetry, which generalize Potts models, and their $U(1)$ limits, for ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic senses of the interaction, which we refer to as exclusion and inclusion models. As the exclusion/inclusion angles are varied, we find a Kosterlitz-Thouless phase transition between a disordered phase and an ordered phase with quasi-long-ranged order, which is the form order by disorder takes in these systems. These results follow from a set of height representations, an ergodic cluster algorithm, and transfer matrix calculations.
The orientation fluctuations of the director of a liquid crystal are measured, by a sensitive polarization interferometer, close to the Freedericksz transition, which is a second order transition driven by an electric field. We show that near the critical value of the field the spatially averaged order parameter has a generalized Gumbel distribution instead of a Gaussian one. The latter is recovered away from the critical point. The relevance of slow modes is pointed out. The parameter of generalized Gumbel is related to the effective number of degrees of freedom.