Weak Long-Ranged Casimir Attraction in Colloidal Crystals
Soft Condensed Matter
2009-11-07 v1 Statistical Mechanics
Abstract
We investigate the influence of geometric confinement on the free energy of an idealized model for charge-stabilized colloidal suspensions. The mean-field Poisson-Boltzmann formulation for this system predicts pure repulsion among macroionic colloidal spheres. Fluctuations in the simple ions' distribution provide a mechanism for the macroions to attract each other at large separations. Although this Casimir interaction is long-ranged, it is too weak to influence colloidal crystals' dynamics.
Cite
@article{arxiv.cond-mat/0107274,
title = {Weak Long-Ranged Casimir Attraction in Colloidal Crystals},
author = {Ajay Gopinathan and Tong Zhou and S. N. Coppersmith and L. P. Kadanoff and David G. Grier},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/0107274},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
5 pages 2 figures ReVTeX