Abstract: In heterogeneous materials, such as in biological cells,
porous media or ionic conductors, anomalous diffusion is observed, i.
e. the mean-squared displacement (MSD) of a tracer particle grows
sub-diffusively over long periods of time. A paradigm for modeling of
transport in heterogeneous media is the Lorentz Model, in which a
single mobile particle moves in a static matrix built of overlapping
hard disk obstacles. There, anomalous diffusion is the signature of a
universal localization transition caused by the percolation of the
matrix. In experiments and simulations, a wide range of exponents have
been reported, and it remains unclear if those exponents represent
transient behavior, or whether they can be connected to a universal
behavior. We generalized the Lorentz Model in molecular dynamics
simulations by introducing interacting tracer particles and soft
interactions and performed experiments of a colloidal Lorentz Model.
We showed that due to the soft interactions the localization
transition becomes rounded and that the universality of the dynamics
breaks down.
References:
1) T.O.E. Skinner et al, PRL 111, 128301 (2013).
2) S.K. Schnyder et al, Soft Matter 11, 701 (2015).
3) S.K. Schnyder et al, PRE 95, 032602 (2017).
4) S.K. Schnyder & J. Horbach, PRL 120, 78001 (2018).