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We investigate collective phenomena with rotationally driven spinners of concave shape. Each spinner experiences a constant internal torque in either a clockwise or counterclockwise direction. Although the spinners are modeled as hard,…
We study the phase diagram of a system of $2\times 2\times 1$ hard plates on the three dimensional cubic lattice, {\em i.e.} a lattice gas of plates that each cover an elementary plaquette of the cubic lattice and occupy its four vertices,…
Previous work on black hole partition functions and entanglement entropy suggests the existence of "edge" degrees of freedom living on the (stretched) horizon. We identify a local and "shrinkable" boundary condition on the stretched horizon…
We consider a system of particles interacting via a purely repulsive, soft-core potential recently introduced to model effective pair interactions between dendrimers, which is expected to lead to the formation of crystals with multiple…
The amount of information propagated by an intermediate heavy particle exhibits characteristic features in inelastic scatterings with $n\geq 3$ final particles. As the total energy increases, the entanglement entropy, between its decay…
A model predicting the structure of repulsive, spherically symmetric, monodisperse particles confined between two walls is presented. We study the buckling transition of a single flat layer as the double layer state develops. Experimental…
Motivated by the idea that intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs) condense into liquid-like droplets within cells, we carry out Monte Carlo simulations of a polymer lattice model to study the relationship between charge patterning and…
Hard spherocylinders (cylinders of length $L$ and diameter $D$ capped at both ends with two hemispheres) provide a suitable model for investigating entropy-driven, mesophase formations in real colloidal fluids that are composed of rigid…
Hypothesis: Colloidal molecules with anisotropic shapes and interactions are powerful model systems for deciphering the behavior of real molecules and building units for creating materials with designed properties. While many strategies for…
We investigate the structure and dynamics of a hard colloid-star polymer mixture in the range of its arrested phase separation, where an incipient demixing transition is interfering with a nearby vitrification line, focusing on the protein…
Although density functional theory provides reliable predictions for the static properties of simple fluids under confinement, a theory of comparative accuracy for the transport coefficients has yet to emerge. Nonetheless, there is evidence…
The quasistatic behavior of a simple 2D model of a cohesive powder under isotropic loads is investigated by Discrete Element simulations. The loose packing states, as studied in a previous paper, undergo important structural changes under…
Inclusions in mobile brushes experience apparent (depletion) attraction, which arises from a tendency to minimize the volume of depletion zones around the inclusions, thereby to maximize the entropy of the surrounding polymers. Here, we…
This thesis can be divided into two independent parts. In the first part of this thesis, we focus on studying the kinetic pathways of nucleation in colloidal systems. In Chapter 2, we briefly introduce the relevant theory of nucleation,…
The nature of randomness in disordered packings of frictional and frictionless spheres is investigated using theory and simulations of identical spherical grains. The entropy of the packings is defined through the force and volume ensemble…
We use numerical simulations to study the phase behavior of a system of purely repulsive soft dumbbells as a function of size ratio of the two components and their relative degree of deformability. We find a plethora of different phases…
We review the literature on scaled particle theory (SPT) and its extensions and discuss results applied to describe the thermodynamics of hard particle mixtures. After explaining the basic concepts of scaled particle theory to compute the…
We show that the relative stability of the nematic tetratic phase with respect to the usual uniaxial nematic phase can be greatly enhanced by clustering effects. Two--dimensional rectangles of aspect ratio $\kappa$ interacting via hard…
Polymer chains decorated with a fraction of monomers capable of forming reversible bonds form transient polymer networks that are important in soft and biological systems. If chains are flexible and the attractive monomers are all of the…
Suspensions of colloidal microplates in contoured 2D elastic fluids sheets are dominated by the bending mechanics and shear rigidity of the plates and the contrasting in-plane shear flow of the 2D fluid. Using the phase separated…