Weak chaos and fractional dynamics in an optically driven colloidal ring

TL;DR

This paper investigates how hydrodynamic coupling and quenched disorder in an optically driven colloidal ring lead to weak chaos with fractional dynamics, revealing a link between microscopic chaos and collective transport properties.

Contribution

It demonstrates the emergence of microscopic weak chaos with fractional dynamics in a colloidal ring driven by optical vortices, connecting microscopic chaos to collective transport behavior.

Findings

Transition to microscopic weak chaos observed

Fractional dynamics characterized in the system

Relation between self-similarity and chaos dynamics established

Abstract

Three colloidal spheres driven around a ring-like optical trap known as an optical vortex have been predicted to undergo periodic collective motion due to their hydrodynamic coupling. In fact, the quenched disorder in the optically-implemented potential energy landscape drives a transition to instability evolving into microscopic weak chaos with fractional dynamics. As a result, the relation between the space-time selfsimilarity of the system's collective transport properties and its microscopic weak chaos dynamics is revealed.