The static and dynamic properties of binary mixtures of hard spheres with a diameter ratio of $σ_B/σ_A=0.1$ and a mass ratio of $m_B/m_A=0.001$ are investigated using event driven molecular dynamics. The contact value of the pair correlation functions are found to compare favourably with recently proposed theoretical expressions. The transport coefficients of the mixture, determined from simulation, are compared to the predictions of revised Enskog theory, using both a third-order Sonine expansion and direct simulation Monte Carlo. Overall, Enskog theory provides a fairly good description of the simulation data, with the exception of systems at the smallest mole fraction of larger spheres ($x_A=0.01$) examined. A "fines effect" was observed at higher packing fractions, where adding smaller spheres to a system of large spheres decreases the viscosity of the mixture; this effect is not captured by Enskog theory.
We present a Monte Carlo algorithm for selectively sampling radial distribution functions and effective interaction potentials in asymmetric liquid mixtures. We demonstrate its efficiency for hard-sphere mixtures, and for model systems with more general interactions, and compare our simulations with several analytical approximations. For interaction potentials containing a hard-sphere contribution, the algorithm yields the contact value of the radial distribution function.
We review recent work on the phase behaviour of binary charged sphere mixtures as a function of particle concentration and composition. Both size ratios and charge ratios are varied over a wide range. By contrast to hard spheres the long ranged Coulomb interaction stabilizes the crystal phase at low particle concentrations and shifts the occurrence of amorphous solids to particle concentrations considerably larger than the freezing concentration. Depending on size- and charge ratios we observe upper azeotrope, spindle, lower azeotrope and eutectic types of phase diagrams, all known well from m…
In a previous work, a simple approach to derive the jamming packing fraction of a hard-sphere mixture from the knowledge of the random close-packing fraction of the monocomponent system was proposed. Now, an extension of that approach is applied to provide an approximate formula for the densest packing fraction of a given hard-sphere mixture in terms of the fcc close-packing fraction of a monocomponent hard-sphere system and of a single parameter encapsulating the dependence on the size ratios and the number of spheres in the unit cell. Comparison with recent results for such densest packing f…
We report a molecular dynamics study of crystallization in highly asymmetric binary hard-sphere mixtures, in which the large spheres can form a crystal phase while the small ones remain disordered during the crystallization process of the large spheres. By taking advantage of assisting crystal nucleation with a patterned substrate, direct evidence is presented that there is a close link between the diffusive redistribution of the small spheres and the crystal formation of the large spheres. Although the addition of a second component with large size disparity will not alter the crystal structu…
A simple analytic theory for mixtures of hard spheres and larger polymers with excluded volume interactions is developed. The mixture is shown to exhibit extensive immiscibility. For large polymers with strong excluded volume interactions, the density of monomers at the critical point for demixing decreases as one over the square root of the length of the polymer, while the density of spheres tends to a constant. This is very different to the behaviour of mixtures of hard spheres and ideal polymers, these mixtures although even less miscible than those with polymers with excluded volume intera…
Using a geometry-based fundamental measure density functional theory, we calculate bulk fluid phase diagrams of colloidal mixtures of vanishingly thin hard circular platelets and hard spheres. We find isotropic-nematic phase separation with strong broadening of the biphasic region upon increasing the pressure. In mixtures with large size ratio of platelet and sphere diameter, there is also demixing between two nematic phases with differing platelet concentrations. We formulate a fundamental-measure density functional for mixtures of colloidal platelets and freely overlapping spheres, which rep…
We use hard-sphere generalized hydrodynamic equations to discuss the extended hydrodynamic modes of a binary mixture. The theory presented here is analytic and it provides us with a simple description of the collective excitations of a dense binary mixture at molecular length scales. The behavior we predict is in qualitative agreement with molecular-dynamics results for soft-sphere mixtures. This study provides some insight into the role of compositional disorder in forming glassy configurations.
The binodals and the non-ergodicity lines of a binary mixture of hard sphere-like particles with large size ratio are computed for studying the interplay between dynamic arrest and phase separation in depletion-driven colloidal mixtures. Contrarily to the case of hard core plus short range effective attraction, physical gellation without competition with the fluid-phase separation can occur in such mixtures. This behavior due to the oscillations in the depletion potential should concern all simple mixtures with non-ideal depletant, justifying further studies of their dynamic properties.
We present a Monte Carlo method to simulate asymmetric binary mixtures in the grand canonical ensemble. The method is used to study the colloid-polymer model of Asakura and Oosawa. We determine the phase diagram of the fluid-fluid unmixing transition and the interfacial tension, both at high polymer density and close to the critical point. We also present density profiles in the two-phase region. The results are compared to predictions of a recent density functional theory.
We have measured the phase behavior of a binary mixture of like-charged colloidal spheres with a size ratio of 0.9 and a charge ratio of 0.96 as a function of particle number density n and composition p. Under exhaustively deionized conditions the aqueous suspension forms solid solutions of body centered cubic structure for all compositions. The freezing and melting lines as a function of composition show opposite behavior and open a wide, spindle shaped coexistence region. Lacking more sophisticated treatments, we model the interaction in our mixtures as an effective one-component pair energy…
We derive an exact, analytic expression for the fourth virial coefficient of a system of polydisperse spheres under the constraint that the smallest sphere has a radius smaller than a given function of the radii of the three remaining particles.
We study various manifestations of structural crossover in the properties of a binary mixture of hard-spheres. For homogeneous mixtures that are sufficiently asymmetric, there is a crossover line in the phase diagram such that for thermodynamic states that lie on one side, the decay of the three bulk pair correlation functions is oscillatory with a common wavelength approximately equal to the diameter of the smaller spheres, and for states on the other side, the common wavelength is approximately the diameter of the bigger spheres. Using density functional theory we show that structural crosso…
The scaled particle theory is developed for the description of thermodynamical properties of a mixture of hard spheres and hard spherocylinders. Analytical expressions for free energy, pressure and chemical potentials are derived. From the minimization of free energy, a nonlinear integral equation for the orientational singlet distribution function is formulated. An isotropic-nematic phase transition in this mixture is investigated from the bifurcation analysis of this equation. It is shown that with an increase of concentration of hard spheres, the total packing fraction of a mixture on phase…
Polydisperse mixtures are those in which components with a whole range of sizes are present. It is shown that the fluid phase of polydisperse hard spheres is thermodynamically unstable unless the density of large spheres decreases at least exponentially as their size increases. The instability is with respect to the large spheres crystallising out into multiple solid phases.
We present a versatile density functional approach (DFT) for calculating the depletion potential in general fluid mixtures. In contrast to brute force DFT, our approach requires only the equilibrium density profile of the small particles {\em before} the big (test) particle is inserted. For a big particle near a planar wall or a cylinder or another fixed big particle the relevant density profiles are functions of a single variable, which avoids the numerical complications inherent in brute force DFT. We implement our approach for additive hard-sphere mixtures. By investigating the depletion po…
The stability of liquid crystal phases in presence of small amount of non-mesogenic impurities is of general interest for a large spectrum of technological applications and in the theories of binary mixtures. Starting from the known phase diagram of the hard ellipsoids systems, we propose a simple model and method to explore the stability of the nematic phase in presence of small impurities represented by hard spheres. The study is performed in the isobaric ensemble with Monte Carlo simulations.
The phase diagram of a binary fluid mixture of highly asymmetric additive hard spheres is investigated. Demixing is analyzed from the exact low-density expansions of the thermodynamic properties of the mixture and compared with the fluid-fluid separation based on the effective one-component description. Differences in the results obtained from both approaches, which have been claimed to be equivalent, are pointed out and their possible origin is discussed. It is argued that to deal with these differences new theoretical approximations should be devised.
A theoretical scheme for the calculation of the full phase diagram (including cloud and shadow curves, binodals and distribution functions of the coexisting phases) for colloid-polymer mixtures with polymer chain length polydispersity and hard-sphere colloidal and polymeric monomer sizes polydispersity is proposed. The scheme combines thermodynamic perturbation theory for associating fluids and recently developed method used to determine the phase diagram of polydisperse spherical shape colloidal fluids (L.Bellier-Castella {\it et al.}, {\it J.Chem.Phys.} {\bf 113}, 8337(2000)). By way of illu…
We show that the formal procedure of integrating out the degrees of freedom of the small spheres in a binary hard-sphere mixture works equally well for non-additive as it does for additive mixtures. For highly asymmetric mixtures (small size ratios) the resulting effective Hamiltonian of the one-component fluid of big spheres, which consists of an infinite number of many-body interactions, should be accurately approximated by truncating after the term describing the effective pair interaction. Using a density functional treatment developed originally for additive hard-sphere mixtures we determ…
Particle size polydispersity can help to inhibit crystallization of the hard-sphere fluid into close-packed structures at high packing fractions and thus is often employed to create model glass-forming systems. Nonetheless, it is known that hard-sphere mixtures with modest polydispersity still have ordered ground states. Here, we demonstrate by computer simulation that hard-sphere mixtures with increased polydispersity fractionate on the basis of particle size, and a bimodal subpopulation favors formation of topologically close-packed C14 and C15 Laves phases in coexistence with a disordered p…
A possible approximate route to obtain the equation of state of the monodisperse hard-sphere system in the metastable fluid region from the knowledge of the equation of state of a hard-sphere mixture at high densities is discussed. The proposal is illustrated by using recent Monte Carlo simulation data for the pressure of a binary mixture. It is further shown to exhibit high internal consistency.
The stability of demixing phase transition in binary mixtures of hard plates (with thickness L and diameter D) and hard spheres (with diameter $σ$) is studied by means of Parsons-Lee theory. The isotropic-isotropic demixing, which is found in mixtures of large spheres and small plates, is very likely to be preempted by crystallization. In contrast, the nematic-nematic demixing, which is obtained in mixtures of large plates and small spheres, can be stabilized at low diameter ratios ($σ$/D) and aspect ratios (L/D). At intermediate values of $σ$/D, where the sizes of the components are similar, …
Density functional theory is used to study binary colloidal fluids consisting of hard spheres and thin platelets in their bulk and near a planar hard wall. This system exhibits liquid-liquid coexistence of a phase that is rich in spheres (poor in platelets) and a phase that is poor in spheres (rich in platelets). For the mixture near a planar hard wall, we find that the phase rich in spheres wets the wall completely upon approaching the liquid demixing binodal from the sphere-poor phase, provided the concentration of the platelets is smaller than a threshold value which marks a first-order wet…
We employ effective interaction potentials to study the equilibrium structure and phase behavior of highly asymmetric mixtures of star polymers. We consider in particular the influence of the addition of a component with a small number of arms and a small size on a concentrated solution of large stars with a high functionality. By employing liquid integral equation theories we examine the evolution of the correlation functions of the big stars upon addition of the small ones, finding a loss of structure that can be attributed to a weakening of the repulsions between the large stars due to the …
Multiple distinct glass states occur in binary hard-sphere mixtures with constituents of very disparate sizes according to the mode-coupling theory of the glass transition (MCT), distinguished by considering whether small particles remain mobile or not, and whether small particles contribute significantly to perturb the big-particle structure or not. In the idealized glass, the four different glasses are separated by sharp transitions that give rise to higher-order transition phenomena involving logarithmic decay laws, and to anomalous power-law-like diffusion. The phenomena are argued to be e…
We prepared a buoyancy matched binary mixture of polydisperse polystyrene microgel spheres of size ratio 0.785 and at a volume fraction of 0.567 just below the kinetic glass transition. In line with theoretical expectations, a eutectic phase behavior was observed, but only a minor fraction of the samples crystallized at all. By adding a short non-adsorbing polymer we enforce inter-species fractionation into coexisting pure component crystals, which in turn also shows signs of intra-species fractionation. We show that in formerly inaccessible regions of the phase diagram binary hard sphere phys…
In a recent letter, Buhot proposes that entropy driven phase-separation in hard-core binary mixtures is directly related to a bond-percolation transition. However, at least for binary hard-sphere mixtures, calculations based on an accurate approximation to g_{ll}(r) demonstrate that n_b varies widely along the phase-boundaries calculated directly by simulations, implying that bond-percolation is unrelated to the phase-separation in these systems.
We construct a non-perturbative fully analytical approximation for the thermodynamics and the structure of nonadditive hard-sphere fluid mixtures. The method essentially lies in a heuristic extension of the Percus-Yevick solution for additive hard spheres. Extensive comparison with Monte Carlo simulation data shows a generally good agreement, especially in the case of like-like radial distribution functions.
In a previous paper (J. Zhang {\it et al.}, J. Chem. Phys. {\bf 110}, 5318 (1999)) we introduced a model for polydisperse hard sphere mixtures that is able to adjust its particle-size distribution. Here we give the explanation of the questions that arose in the previous description and present a consistent theory of the phase transition in this system, based on the Percus-Yevick equation of state. The transition is continuous, and like Bose-Einstein condensation a macroscopic aggregate is formed due to the microscopic interactions. A BMCSL-like treatment leads to the same conclusion with sligh…
We calculate for the first time the full phase-diagram of an asymmetric non-additive hard-sphere mixture. The non-additivity strongly affects the crystallization and the fluid-fluid phase-separation. The global topology of the phase-diagram is controlled by an effective size-ratio y_{eff}, while the fluid-solid coexistence scales with the depth of the effective potential well.
The collision dynamics of hard spheres and cylindrical pores is solved exactly, which is the minimal model for a regularly porous membrane. Nonequilibrium event-driven molecular dynamics simulations are used to show that the permeability $P$ of hard spheres of size $σ$ through cylinderical pores of size $d$ follow the hindered diffusion mechanism due to size exclusion as $P \propto (1-σ/d)^2$. Under this law, the separation of binary mixtures of large and small particles exhibits a linear relationship between $α^{-1/2}$ and $P^{-1/2}$, where $α$ and $P$ are the selectivity and permeability of …
In the spirit of the White-Bear version of fundamental measure theory we derive a new density functional for hard-sphere mixtures which is based on a recent mixture extension of the Carnahan-Starling equation of state. In addition to the capability to predict inhomogeneous density distributions very accurately, like the original White-Bear version, the new functional improves upon consistency with an exact scaled-particle theory relation in the case of the pure fluid. We examine consistency in detail within the context of morphological thermodynamics. Interestingly, for the pure fluid the degr…
Phase separation of colloid-polymer mixtures, described by the Asakura-Oosawa (AO) model, confined in a thin slit pore is studied by grand-canonical Monte Carlo simulation. While one wall is a hard wall for both particles, at the other wall there acts an additional repulsive potential on the colloids only. Varying the strength of this potential, a crossover from capillary condensation to an interface localization transition is found. The latter occurs under conditions where in the bulk almost complete phase separation has occurred.
We analyze the structure of the Fundamental Measure Theory for the free energy density functional of hard sphere mixtures. A comparative study of the different versions of the theory, and other density functional approaches, is done in terms of their generic form for the three-points direct correlation function, which shows clearly the main advantages and problems of the different approximations. A recently developed version for the monocomponent case is extended to mixtures of hard spheres with different radii, and a new prescription is presented to obtain the exact dimensional crossover of t…
Depletion-induced aggregation of rods enhanced by clustering is observed to produce a novel model of attractive pairs of rods separated by a line of spheres in a quasi-2D, vertically-shaken, granular gas of rods and spheres. We show that the stability of these peculiar granular aggregates increases as a function of shaking intensity. Velocity distributions of spheres inside and outside of a pair of rods trapping a line of spheres show a clear suppression of the momentum acquired by the trapped spheres. The condensed phase formed between the rods is caused by a clustering instability of the tra…
The depletion potential between two hard spheres in a solvent of thin hard disclike platelets is investigated by using either the Derjaguin approximation or density functional theory. Particular attention is paid to the density dependence of the depletion potential. A second-order virial approximation is applied, which yields nearly exact results for the bulk properties of the hard-platelet fluid at densities two times smaller than the density of the isotropic fluid at isotropic-nematic phase coexistence. As the platelet density increases, the attractive primary minimum of the depletion potent…
A universality ansatz for the contact values of a multicomponent mixture of additive hard spheres is used to propose new formulae for the case of disparate-size binary mixtures. A comparison with simulation data and with a recent proposal by Alawneh and Henderson for binary mixtures shows reasonably good agreement with the predictions for the contact values of the large-large radial distribution functions. A discussion on the usefulness and limitations of the new proposals is also presented.
We use the Self Consisten Generalized Langevin Equation theory (SCGLE) to study the dynamic arrest transitions of a system of three species of hard sphere colloidal system in the size ratio 1:3:9. We find that the inclusion of the smallest species has a depletion effect that drives the system to a second glass-liquid-glass re-entrance in a similar way that the inclusion of a small species in an otherwise monodisperse system leads to a (first) re-entrance. And we also find that the new glass after the second reentrance has very small localization length. Additionally we compare the kinetic phas…
Based on fundamental measure theory, a Helmholtz free energy density functional for three-component mixtures of hard spheres with general, non-additive interaction distances is constructed. The functional constitutes a generalization of the previously given theory for binary non-additive mixtures. The diagrammatic structure of the spatial integrals in both functionals is of star-like (or tree-like) topology. The ternary diagrams possess a higher degree of complexity than the binary diagrams. Results for partial pair correlation functions, obtained via the Ornstein-Zernike route from the second…
We investigate Monte Carlo simulation strategies for determining the effective ("depletion") potential between a pair of hard spheres immersed in a dense sea of much smaller hard spheres. Two routes to the depletion potential are considered. The first is based on estimates of the insertion probability of one big sphere in the presence of the other; we describe and compare three such methods. The second route exploits collective (cluster) updating to sample the depletion potential as a function of the separation of the big particles; we describe two such methods. For both routes we find that th…
The problem of demixing in a binary fluid mixture of highly asymmetric additive hard spheres is revisited. A comparison is presented between the results derived previously using truncated virial expansions for three finite size ratios with those that one obtains with the same approach in the extreme case in which one of the components consists of point particles. Since this latter system is known not to exhibit fluid-fluid segregation, the similarity observed for the behavior of the critical constants arising in the truncated series in all instances, while not being conclusive, may cast seriou…
Using fundamental-measure density functional theory we investigate entropic wetting in an asymmetric binary mixture of hard spheres with positive non-additivity. We consider a general planar hard wall, where preferential adsorption is induced by a difference in closest approach of the different species and the wall. Close to bulk fluid-fluid coexistence the phase rich in the minority component adsorbs either through a series of first-order layering transitions, where an increasing number of liquid layers adsorbs sequentially, or via a critical wetting transition, where a thick film grows conti…
We study the flow of equal-volume binary granular mixtures of spheres and dumbbells with different aspect ratios down a rough inclined plane, using the discrete element method. We consider two types of mixtures -- in the first type the particles of the two species have equal volume but different aspect ratios (EV) and in the second type they have variable volumes and aspect ratios (VV). We also use mixtures of spheres of two different sizes (SS) with the same volume ratios as in the mixtures of the second type, as the base case. Based on the study of Guillard, Forterre and Pouliquen [\textit{J…
We present a novel method for the accurate numerical determination of the phase behavior of fluid mixtures having large particle size asymmetries. By incorporating the recently developed geometric cluster algorithm within a restricted Gibbs ensemble, we are able to probe directly the density and concentration fluctuations that drive phase transitions, but that are inaccessible to conventional simulation algorithms. We develop a finite-size scaling theory that relates these density fluctuations to those of the grand-canonical ensemble, thereby enabling accurate location of critical points and c…
Explicit simulations of fluid mixtures of highly size-dispersed particles are constrained by numerical challenges associated with identifying pair-interaction neighbors. Recent algorithmic developments have ameliorated these difficulties to an extent, permitting more efficient simulations of systems with many large and small particles of disperse sizes. We leverage these capabilities to perform molecular dynamics simulations of binary sphere mixtures with elastically stiff particles approaching the hard sphere limit and particle size ratios of up to 50, approaching the colloidal limit. The sys…
We consider binary mixtures of soft repulsive spherical particles and calculate the depletion interaction between two big spheres mediated by the fluid of small spheres, using different theoretical and simulation methods. The validity of the theoretical approach, a virial expansion in terms of the density of the small spheres, is checked against simulation results. Attention is given to the approach toward the hard-sphere limit, and to the effect of density and temperature on the strength of the depletion potential. Our results indicate, surprisingly, that even a modest degree of softness in t…
Comprehensive calculations were performed to predict the phase behaviour of large spherical colloids mixed with small spherical colloids that act as depletant. To this end, the free volume theory (FVT) of Lekkerkerker et al. [Europhys. Lett. 20 (1992) 559] is used as a basis and is extended to explicitly include the hard-sphere character of colloidal depletants into the expression for the free volume fraction. Taking the excluded volume of the depletants into account in both the system and the reservoir provides a relation between the depletant concentration in the reservoir and in the system …
A geometry-based density functional theory is presented for mixtures of hard spheres, hard needles and hard platelets; both the needles and the platelets are taken to be of vanishing thickness. Geometrical weight functions that are characteristic for each species are given and it is shown how convolutions of pairs of weight functions recover each Mayer bond of the ternary mixture and hence ensure the correct second virial expansion of the excess free energy functional. The case of sphere-platelet overlap relies on the same approximation as does Rosenfeld's functional for strictly two-dimension…
It has been recently pointed out by Farr and Groot (arXiv:0912.0852) and by Kyrylyuk and Philipse (Prog. Colloid Polym. Sci., 2010, in press) that our theoretical result for the jamming density of a binary mixture of hard spheres (arXiv:0903.5099) apparently violates an upper bound that is obtained by considering the limit where the diameter ratio r = DA/DB goes to infinity. We believe that this apparent contradiction is the consequence of a misunderstanding, which we try to clarify here.
We develop the scaled particle theory to describe the thermodynamic properties and orientation ordering of a binary mixture of hard spheres (HS) and hard spherocylinders (HSC) confined in a disordered porous medium. Using this theory the analytical expressions of the free energy, the pressure and the chemical potentials of HS and HSC have been derived. The improvement of obtained results is considered by introducing the Carnahan-Starling-like and Parsons-Lee-like corrections. Phase diagrams for the isotropic-nematic transition are calculated from the bifurcation analysis of the integral equati…
A theoretical model for polydisperse systems of hard spheres is said to be truncatable when the excess free energy depends on the size distribution through a finite number $K$ of moments. This Note proves an exact scaling relation for truncatable free energies, which allows to reduce the effective degrees of freedom to $K-2$ independent combinations of the moments.
In a recent publication[PRE 86, 04012 (2012)], Santos has presented a self-consistency condition that can be used to limit the possible forms of Fundamental Measure Theory. Here, the direct correlation function resulting from the Santos functional is derived and it is found to diverge for all densities.
We study the influence of particle size asymmetry on structural evolution of randomly jammed binary sphere mixtures with varying large-sphere/small-sphere composition. Simulations of jammed packings are used to assess the transition from large-sphere dominant to small-sphere dominant mixtures. For weakly asymmetric particle sizes, packing properties evolve smoothly, but not monotonically, with increasing small sphere composition, $f$. Our simulations reveal that at high values of ratio $α$ of large to small sphere radii, ($α\geq α_c \approx 5.75$) evolution of structural properties such as pac…
Monte Carlo simulations on the structural properties of ternary fluid mixtures of additive hard spheres are reported. The results are compared with those obtained from a recent analytical approximation [S. B. Yuste, A. Santos, and M. Lopez de Haro, J. Chem. Phys. 108, 3683 (1998)] to the radial distribution functions of hard-sphere mixtures and with the results derived from the solution of the Ornstein-Zernike integral equation with both the Martynov-Sarkisov and the Percus-Yevick closures. Very good agreement between the results of the first two approaches and simulation is observed, with a n…
The morphology of a mixture made of a polar active gel immersed in an isotropic passive fluid is studied numerically. Lattice Boltzmann method is adopted to solve the Navier-Stokes equation and coupled to a finite-difference scheme used to integrate the dynamic equations of the concentration and of the polarization of the active component. By varying the relative amounts of the mixture phases, different structures can be observed. In the contractile case, at moderate values of activity, elongated structures are formed when the active component is less abundant, while a dynamic emulsion of pass…
Very recently the effect of equisized charged hard sphere solutes in a mixture with core-softened fluid model on the structural and thermodynamic anomalies of the system has been explored in detail by using Monte Carlo simulations and integral equations theory [J. Chem. Phys., 2012, 137, 244502]. Our objective of the present short work is to complement this study by considering univalent ions of unequal diameters in a mixture with the same soft-core fluid model. Specifically, we are interested in the analysis of changes of the temperature of maximum density (TMD) lines with ion concentration f…
We investigate theoretically the effect of gravity on a plate-sphere colloidal mixture by means of an Onsager-like density functional to describe the bulk, and sedimentation path theory to incorporate gravity. We calculate the stacking diagram of the mixture for two sets of buoyant masses and different values of the sample height. Several stacking sequences appear due to the intricate interplay between gravity, the sample height, and bulk phase separation. These include the experimentally observed floating nematic sequence, which consists of a nematic layer sandwiched between two isotropic lay…
Highly size-asymmetrical fluid mixtures arise in a variety of physical contexts, notably in suspensions of colloidal particles to which much smaller particles have been added in the form of polymers or nanoparticles. Conventional schemes for simulating models of such systems are hamstrung by the difficulty of relaxing the large species in the presence of the small one. Here we describe how the rejection-free geometrical cluster algorithm (GCA) of Liu and Luijten [Phys. Rev. Lett 92, 035504 (2004)] can be embedded within a restricted Gibbs ensemble to facilitate efficient and accurate studies o…
