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RESEARCH PRODUCT
Coexistence of active Brownian disks: van der Waals theory and analytical results
Thomas Specksubject
Thermal equilibriumPhysicsEquation of stateStatistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech)FOS: Physical sciencesState (functional analysis)01 natural sciences010305 fluids & plasmasSurface tensionsymbols.namesakeTemperature and pressureClassical mechanicsPhase (matter)0103 physical sciencessymbolsvan der Waals force010306 general physicsCondensed Matter - Statistical MechanicsBrownian motiondescription
At thermal equilibrium, intensive quantities like temperature and pressure have to be uniform throughout the system, restricting inhomogeneous systems composed of different phases. The paradigmatic example is the coexistence of vapor and liquid, a state that can also be observed for active Brownian particles steadily driven away from equilibrium. Recently, a strategy has been proposed that allows to predict phase equilibria of active particles [Solon et al., Phys. Rev. E 97, 020602(R) (2018)2470-004510.1103/PhysRevE.97.020602]. Here we elaborate on this strategy and formulate it in the framework of a van der Waals theory for active disks. For a given equation of state, we derive the effective free energy analytically and show that it yields coexisting densities in very good agreement with numerical results. We discuss the interfacial tension and the relation to Cahn-Hilliard models.
| year | journal | country | edition | language |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020-10-25 | Physical Review E |