Microscopic Insights into Dynamical Heterogeneity in a Lane-forming Liquid

TL;DR

This study investigates dynamical heterogeneity in a driven colloidal system, revealing how structural and dynamical properties change with applied field using simulations, highlighting maximum heterogeneity at intermediate states.

Contribution

It provides microscopic insights into how dynamical heterogeneity arises and varies in a lane-forming colloidal system under external driving forces.

Findings

Homogeneous structural relaxation at low fields.

Heterogeneous relaxation at high fields.

Maximum heterogeneity occurs at intermediate states.

Abstract

Dynamical heterogeneity (DH) in non-equilibrium systems is a topic of profound interest yet an open question. In a model system of constantly driven oppositely charged binary colloidal suspension, we explore DH in a model lane-forming system using BD simulations. We show that the system undergoes structural and dynamical cross-over using spatio-temporal correlation functions. For small field, the structural relaxation is homogeneous while it is heterogeneous for sufficiently high field. In order to explore the heterogeneity, we track and tag the particles to compute partial structures that relax at different rates, in which heterogeneity has its maximum in the intermediate state.