Contact Forces in Microgel Suspensions

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Vrban, Fran Ivan, Šiber, Antonio, Ziherl, Primož
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Vrban, Fran Ivan
Šiber, Antonio
Ziherl, Primož
author_facet Vrban, Fran Ivan
Šiber, Antonio
Ziherl, Primož
contents Within a model where micrometer-size soft colloidal particles are viewed as liquid drops, we theoretically study the contact interaction between them. We compute the exact deformation energy across a broad range of indentations and for various model parameters, and we show that it can be reproduced using truncated superball and spheropolyhedral variational shapes in the attractive and the repulsive regime, respectively. At large surface tensions representative of microgels, this energy is pairwise additive well beyond small indentations and can be approximated by a power-law dependence on indentation with an exponent around 2.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2509_25583
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Contact Forces in Microgel Suspensions
Vrban, Fran Ivan
Šiber, Antonio
Ziherl, Primož
Soft Condensed Matter
Within a model where micrometer-size soft colloidal particles are viewed as liquid drops, we theoretically study the contact interaction between them. We compute the exact deformation energy across a broad range of indentations and for various model parameters, and we show that it can be reproduced using truncated superball and spheropolyhedral variational shapes in the attractive and the repulsive regime, respectively. At large surface tensions representative of microgels, this energy is pairwise additive well beyond small indentations and can be approximated by a power-law dependence on indentation with an exponent around 2.
title Contact Forces in Microgel Suspensions
topic Soft Condensed Matter
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.25583