Interactions and pattern formation in a macroscopic magnetocapillary SALR system of mermaid cereal

Interactions and pattern formation in a macroscopic magnetocapillary SALR system of mermaid cereal

Blog Article

Abstract When particles are deposited at a fluid interface they tend to aggregate by capillary attraction to minimize the overall potential energy of the system.In this work, we embed floating millimetric disks with permanent magnets to introduce a competing repulsion effect and study their pattern formation in equilibrium.The pairwise energy landscape of two disks is described by a LEMONGRASS LIME BW short-range attraction and long-range repulsion (SALR) interaction potential, previously documented in a number of microscopic condensed matter systems.Such competing interactions enable a variety of pairwise equilibrium states, including the possibility of a local minimum energy corresponding to a finite disk spacing.Two-dimensional (2D) experiments and simulations in confined geometries demonstrate that as the areal UNSCENTED DEODORANT packing fraction is increased, the dilute repulsion-dominated lattice state becomes unstable to the spontaneous formation of localized clusters, which eventually merge into a system-spanning striped pattern.

Finally, we demonstrate that the equilibrium pattern can be externally manipulated by the application of a supplemental vertical magnetic force that remotely enhances the effective capillary attraction.