Theory of Capillary Tension and Interfacial Dynamics of Motility-Induced Phases

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Langford, Luke, Omar, Ahmad K.
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2023
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author Langford, Luke
Omar, Ahmad K.
author_facet Langford, Luke
Omar, Ahmad K.
contents The statistical mechanics of equilibrium interfaces has been well-established for over a half century. In the last decade, a wealth of observations have made increasingly clear that a new perspective is required to describe interfaces arbitrarily far from equilibrium. In this work, beginning from microscopic particle dynamics that break time-reversal symmetry, we systematically derive the interfacial dynamics of coexisting motility-induced phases. Doing so allows us to identify the athermal energy scale that excites interfacial fluctuations and the nonequilibrium surface tension that resists these excitations. Our theory identifies that, in contrast to equilibrium fluids, this active surface tension contains contributions arising from nonconservative forces which act to suppress interfacial fluctuations and, crucially, is distinct from the mechanical surface tension of Kirkwood and Buff. We find that the interfacial stiffness scales linearly with the intrinsic persistence length of the constituent active particle trajectories, in agreement with simulation data. We demonstrate that at wavelengths much larger than the persistence length, the interface obeys surface area minimizing Boltzmann statistics with our derived nonequilibrium interfacial stiffness playing an identical role to that of equilibrium systems.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2308_08531
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Theory of Capillary Tension and Interfacial Dynamics of Motility-Induced Phases
Langford, Luke
Omar, Ahmad K.
Soft Condensed Matter
Statistical Mechanics
The statistical mechanics of equilibrium interfaces has been well-established for over a half century. In the last decade, a wealth of observations have made increasingly clear that a new perspective is required to describe interfaces arbitrarily far from equilibrium. In this work, beginning from microscopic particle dynamics that break time-reversal symmetry, we systematically derive the interfacial dynamics of coexisting motility-induced phases. Doing so allows us to identify the athermal energy scale that excites interfacial fluctuations and the nonequilibrium surface tension that resists these excitations. Our theory identifies that, in contrast to equilibrium fluids, this active surface tension contains contributions arising from nonconservative forces which act to suppress interfacial fluctuations and, crucially, is distinct from the mechanical surface tension of Kirkwood and Buff. We find that the interfacial stiffness scales linearly with the intrinsic persistence length of the constituent active particle trajectories, in agreement with simulation data. We demonstrate that at wavelengths much larger than the persistence length, the interface obeys surface area minimizing Boltzmann statistics with our derived nonequilibrium interfacial stiffness playing an identical role to that of equilibrium systems.
title Theory of Capillary Tension and Interfacial Dynamics of Motility-Induced Phases
topic Soft Condensed Matter
Statistical Mechanics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2308.08531