Reentrance effect in the lane formation of driven colloids

TL;DR

This paper predicts a reentrance effect in lane formation of driven colloids, where increasing density first induces lanes and then destroys them at high densities, supported by simulations and theoretical modeling.

Contribution

It introduces the concept of reentrance in lane formation of driven colloids, combining simulations and density functional theory to predict this novel phenomenon.

Findings

Lane formation occurs at intermediate densities.

High densities lead to the disappearance of lanes.

Reentrance behavior is confirmed by simulations and theory.

Abstract

Recently it has been shown that a strongly interacting colloidal mixture consisting of oppositely driven particles, undergoes a nonequilibrium transition towards lane formation provided the driving strength exceeds a threshold value. We predict here a reentrance effect in lane formation: for fixed high driving force and increasing particle densities, there is first a transition towards lane formation which is followed by another transition back to a state with no lanes. Our result is obtained both by Brownian dynamics computer simulations and by a phenomenological dynamical density functional theory.