1,011 research outputs found

    Tunable diffusion of magnetic particles in a quasi-one-dimensional channel

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    The diffusion of a system of ferromagnetic dipoles confined in a quasi-one-dimensional parabolic trap is studied using Brownian dynamics simulations. We show that the dynamics of the system is tunable by an in-plane external homogeneous magnetic field. For a strong applied magnetic field, we find that the mobility of the system, the exponent of diffusion and the crossover time among different diffusion regimes can be tuned by the orientation of the magnetic field. For weak magnetic fields, the exponent of diffusion in the subdiffusive regime is independent of the orientation of the external field.Comment: 9 pages, 13 figures, to appear in Phys. Rev. E (2013

    Transition from single-file to two-dimensional diffusion of interacting particles in a quasi-one-dimensional channel

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    Diffusive properties of a monodisperse system of interacting particles confined to a \textit{quasi}-one-dimensional (Q1D) channel are studied using molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. We calculate numerically the mean-squared displacement (MSD) and investigate the influence of the width of the channel (or the strength of the confinement potential) on diffusion in finite-size channels of different shapes (i.e., straight and circular). The transition from single-file diffusion (SFD) to the two-dimensional diffusion regime is investigated. This transition (regarding the calculation of the scaling exponent (α\alpha) of the MSD tα\propto t^{\alpha}) as a function of the width of the channel, is shown to change depending on the channel's confinement profile. In particular the transition can be either smooth (i.e., for a parabolic confinement potential) or rather sharp/stepwise (i.e., for a hard-wall potential), as distinct from infinite channels where this transition is abrupt. This result can be explained by qualitatively different distributions of the particle density for the different confinement potentials.Comment: 13 pages, 11 figure
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