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Main Authors: Massana-Cid, Helena, Maggi, Claudio, Gnan, Nicoletta, Frangipane, Giacomo, Di Leonardo, Roberto
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2401.09911
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author Massana-Cid, Helena
Maggi, Claudio
Gnan, Nicoletta
Frangipane, Giacomo
Di Leonardo, Roberto
author_facet Massana-Cid, Helena
Maggi, Claudio
Gnan, Nicoletta
Frangipane, Giacomo
Di Leonardo, Roberto
contents Thermal fluctuations constantly and evenly excite all vibrational modes in an equilibrium crystal. As the temperature rises, these fluctuations promote the formation of defects and eventually melting. In active solids, the self-propulsion of "atomic" units provides another source of strong non-equilibrium fluctuations whose effect on the melting scenario is still largely unexplored. Here we show that when a colloidal crystal is activated by a bath of swimming bacteria, solvent temperature and active temperature cooperate to define dynamic and thermodynamic properties. Our system consists of repulsive paramagnetic particles confined in two dimensions and immersed in a bath of light-driven E. coli. The relative balance between fluctuations and interactions can be adjusted in two ways: by changing the strength of the magnetic field and by tuning activity with light. When the persistence time of active fluctuations is short, a single effective temperature controls both the amplitudes of vibrational modes and the melting transition. For more persistent active noise, energy equipartition is broken and multiple temperatures emerge, whereas melting occurs before the Lindemann parameter reaches its equilibrium critical value. We show that this phenomenology is fully confirmed by numerical simulations and can be framed within a minimal model of a single active particle in a periodic potential.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2401_09911
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Multiple temperatures and melting of a colloidal active crystal
Massana-Cid, Helena
Maggi, Claudio
Gnan, Nicoletta
Frangipane, Giacomo
Di Leonardo, Roberto
Soft Condensed Matter
Thermal fluctuations constantly and evenly excite all vibrational modes in an equilibrium crystal. As the temperature rises, these fluctuations promote the formation of defects and eventually melting. In active solids, the self-propulsion of "atomic" units provides another source of strong non-equilibrium fluctuations whose effect on the melting scenario is still largely unexplored. Here we show that when a colloidal crystal is activated by a bath of swimming bacteria, solvent temperature and active temperature cooperate to define dynamic and thermodynamic properties. Our system consists of repulsive paramagnetic particles confined in two dimensions and immersed in a bath of light-driven E. coli. The relative balance between fluctuations and interactions can be adjusted in two ways: by changing the strength of the magnetic field and by tuning activity with light. When the persistence time of active fluctuations is short, a single effective temperature controls both the amplitudes of vibrational modes and the melting transition. For more persistent active noise, energy equipartition is broken and multiple temperatures emerge, whereas melting occurs before the Lindemann parameter reaches its equilibrium critical value. We show that this phenomenology is fully confirmed by numerical simulations and can be framed within a minimal model of a single active particle in a periodic potential.
title Multiple temperatures and melting of a colloidal active crystal
topic Soft Condensed Matter
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2401.09911