title: Critical depletion.
abstract: Depletion interactions and the critical Casimir effect are usually regarded as distinct phenomena in colloidal suspensions. By experimentally investigating how the Asakura-Oosawa picture, appropriate for a weakly correlated depletant, is modified when critical correlations develop within the depletion agent, we conversely show that the former merges continuously into the latter, leading to a distinctive scaling behavior solely dictated by the depletant correlation length. A model based on density functional theory provides a microscopic understanding of the phenomenon and properly accounts for the observed trends.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry (CMIC), Politecnico di Milano, via Ponzio 34/3, 20133 Milano, Italy.
authors.forename: Stefano
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Buzzaccaro
authors.forename: Jader
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Colombo
authors.forename: Alberto
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Parola
authors.forename: Roberto
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Piazza