Related papers: Critical Casimir interactions around the consolute…
A recent Letter [Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 156101 (2009)] reports the experimental observation of aggregation of colloidal particles dispersed in a liquid mixture of heavy water and 3-methylpyridine. The experimental data are interpreted in…
We investigate the influence of confinement on phase separation in colloid-polymer mixtures. To describe the particle interactions, the colloid-polymer model of Asakura and Oosawa [J. Chem. Phys. 22, 1255 (1954)] is used. Grand canonical…
The effect of imposing a constraint on a fluctuating scalar order parameter field in a system of finite volume is studied within statistical field theory. The canonical ensemble, corresponding to a fixed total integrated order parameter, is…
The exact critical Casimir force between periodically deformed boundaries of a 2D semi-infinite strip is obtained for conformally invariant classical systems. Only two parameters (conformal charge and scaling dimension of a boundary…
We report the observation of a temperature-controlled synchronization of two Brownian-particles in a binary mixture close to the critical point of the demixing transition. The two beads are trapped by two optical tweezers whose distance is…
We classify the sign of the critical Casimir force between two finite objects separated by a large distance in the two dimensional systems that can be described by conformal field theory (CFT). In particular, we show that as far as the…
Systems described by an O(n) symmetrical $\phi^4$ Hamiltonian are considered in a $d$-dimensional film geometry at their bulk critical points. The critical Casimir forces between the film's boundary planes $\mathfrak{B}_j, j=1,2$, are…
We develop a theory to probe the effect of non-equilibrium fluctuation-induced forces on the size of a polymer confined between two horizontal thermally conductive plates subject to a constant temperature gradient, $\nabla T$. We assume…
We analyse a binary mixture of colloidal parallel hard cylindrical particles with identical diameters but dissimilar lengths $L_1$ and $L_2$, with $s=L_2/L_1=3$, confined by two parallel hard walls in a planar slit-pore geometry, using a…
We analyze the critical gas-liquid phase behavior of arbitrary fluid mixtures in their coexistence region. We focus on the setting relevant for polydisperse colloids, where the overall density and composition of the system are being…
In this Letter we consider a liquid mixture confined between two thermally conducting walls subjected to a stationary temperature gradient. While in a one-component liquid non-equilibrium fluctuation forces appear inside the liquid layer…
Theoretical aspects of polymers in mixed solvents are considered using the Edwards Hamiltonian formalism. Thermodynamic and structural properties are investigated and some predictions are made when the mixed solvent approaches criticality.…
A solid substrate, when exposed to a vapour, can interact with it in such a way that sufficiently close to liquid-vapour coexistence a macroscopically thick liquid wetting layer is formed on the substrate surface. If such a wetting…
We discuss four different, though related, fundamental topics related to the Casimir effect: 1) We suggest that the application of Casimir theory to real dielectric materials, thus implying the atomic spacing as a course-grained length…
The formalism based on Correlated Basis Functions (CBF) and the cluster-expansion technique has been recently employed to derive an effective interaction from a realistic nuclear Hamiltonian. One of the main objectives of the work described…
We study the Casimir effect for scalar fields with general curvature coupling subject to mixed boundary conditions $(1+\beta_{m}n^{\mu}\partial_{\mu})\phi =0$ at $x=a_{m}$ on one ($m=1$) and two ($m=1,2$) parallel plates at a distance…
We consider binary liquid mixtures near their critical consolute points and exposed to geometrically flat but chemically structured substrates. The chemical contrast between the various substrate structures amounts to opposite local…
The mapping between a classical length and inverse temperature as imaginary time provides a direct equivalence between the Casimir force of a classical system in $D$ dimensions and internal energy of a quantum system in $d$$=$$D$$-$$1$…
Systems with an O(n) symmetrical Hamiltonian are considered in a $d$-dimensional slab geometry of macroscopic lateral extension and finite thickness $L$ that undergo a continuous bulk phase transition in the limit $L\to\infty$. The…
The Casimir effect is a general phenomenon in physics, which arises when the vacuum fluctuation of an arbitrary field is modified by static or slowly varying boundary. However, its spin version is rarely addressed, mainly due to the fact…