Equilibrium cluster phases and low-density arrested disordered states: The role of short-range attraction and long-range repulsion

TL;DR

This paper investigates how short-range attraction combined with long-range repulsion in particle interactions leads to equilibrium cluster phases and low-density arrested disordered states, providing insights into gel formation in colloidal systems.

Contribution

It introduces a model capturing the formation of equilibrium clusters and their transition into gels driven by repulsive interactions, linking cluster phases with glass transition physics.

Findings

Stable equilibrium clusters form at low packing fractions.

Cluster fluids can transition into gels via a glass transition.

The model links cluster formation with arrested disordered states.

Abstract

We study a model in which particles interact with short-ranged attractive and long-ranged repulsive interactions, in an attempt to model the equilibrium cluster phase recently discovered in sterically stabilized colloidal systems in the presence of depletion interactions. At low packing fraction particles form stable equilibrium clusters which act as building blocks of a cluster fluid. We study the possibility that cluster fluids generate a low-density disordered arrested phase, a gel, via a glass transition driven by the repulsive interaction. In this model the gel formation is formally described with the same physics of the glass formation.