Equilibrium cluster phases and low-density arrested disordered states: the role of short-range attraction and long-range repulsion.
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 fractions, 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.
Sciortino
Francesco
F
Dipartimento di Fisica and INFM Udr and Center for Statistical Mechanics and Complexity, Università di Roma La Sapienza, Piazzale Aldo Moro 2, I-00185 Rome, Italy.
Mossa
Stefano
S
Zaccarelli
Emanuela
E
Tartaglia
Piero
P