Dynamical density functional theory: phase separation in a cavity and the influence of symmetry

Abstract

Consider a fluid composed of two species of particles, where the interparticle pair potentials $u_{11}=u_{22}\ne u_{12}$. On confining an equal number of particles from each species in a cavity, one finds that the average one body density profiles of each species are constrained to be exactly the same due to the symmetry, when both external cavity potentials are the same. For a binary fluid of Brownian particles interacting via repulsive Gaussian pair potentials that exhibits phase separation, we study the dynamics of the fluid one body density profiles on breaking the symmetry of the external potentials, using the dynamical density functional theory of Marconi and Tarazona [{\it J. Chem. Phys.}, {\bf 110}, 8032 (1999)]. On breaking the symmetry we see that the fluid one body density profiles can then show the phase separation that is present.

7 pages, 4 figures. Accepted for the proceedings of the Liquid Matter conference 2005, to be publication in J. Phys.: Condens. Matter

References in corpus (5)

• Dynamical density functional theory and its application to spinodal decomposition
• Dynamical density functional theory for interacting Brownian particles: stochastic or deterministic?
• Dynamical density functional theory: binary phase-separating colloidal fluid in a cavity
• Dynamic density functional study of a driven colloidal particle in polymer solutions
• Mean-field dynamical density functional theory

Cited by in corpus (10)

• Classical dynamical density functional theory: from fundamentals to applications
• Dynamical density functional theory for molecular and colloidal fluids: a microscopic approach to fluid mechanics
• The van Hove distribution function for Brownian hard spheres: dynamical test particle theory and computer simulations for bulk dynamics
• Dynamical density functional theory for dense atomic liquids
• Solidification in soft-core fluids: disordered solids from fast solidification fronts
• Structure, phase behavior and inhomogeneous fluid properties of binary dendrimer mixtures
• Controlling the microstructure and phase behavior of confined soft colloids by active interaction switching
• First-principles superadiabatic theory for the dynamics of inhomogeneous fluids
• On the interplay between sedimentation and phase separation phenomena in two-dimensional colloidal fluids
• Dynamic Density Functional Theory with Inertia and Background Flow