title: Synchronization and beating in dipolarly coupled colloidal rotators.
abstract: One paramagnetic microsphere confined above a circular block wall in a uniaxial garnet film shows synchronous or asynchronous dynamics when subjected to an external rotating magnetic field. Here it is shown that in the bidisperse system a very rich behavior arises with synchronization, beating, and independent particle rotations. The beating dynamics, which allows generating two distinct rotation frequencies, is influenced by magnetic dipolar interactions between the circulating colloids. Numerical simulation supports the experimental data that demonstrate the importance of dipolar interactions in the beating dynamics.
authors.affiliation: Departament de Química Física, Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain. ptierno@ub.edu
authors.forename: Pietro
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Tierno