Non-negative Interfacial Tension in Phase-Separated Active Brownian Particles

Abstract

We present a microscopic theory for the nonequilibrium interfacial tension ${\gamma }_{\mathrm{gl}}$ of the free interface between gas and liquid phases of active Brownian particles. The underlying square gradient treatment and the splitting of the force balance in flow and structural contributions is general and applies to inhomogeneous nonequilibrium steady states. We find ${\gamma }_{\mathrm{gl}}\ge 0$, which opposes claims by Bialké et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. $115$, 098301 (2015)] and delivers the theoretical justification for the widely observed interfacial stability in active Brownian dynamics many-body simulations.

6 pages, 1 figure

References in corpus (6)

• Effective Interactions in Active Brownian Suspensions
• Dynamical mean-field theory and weakly non-linear analysis for the phase separation of active Brownian particles
• Non-Equilibrium Surface Tension of the Vapour-Liquid Interface of Active Lennard-Jones Particles
• Phase coexistence of active Brownian particles
• Superadiabatic forces in Brownian many-body dynamics
• Nonequilibrium phase behaviour from minimization of free power dissipation

Cited by in corpus (3)

• Phase separation of active Brownian particles in two dimensions: Anything for a quiet life
• Universality in Driven and Equilibrium Hard Sphere Liquid Dynamics
• Dynamic Decay and Superadiabatic Forces in the van Hove Dynamics of Bulk Hard Sphere Fluids