title: A parallel algorithm for implicit depletant simulations.
abstract: We present an algorithm to simulate the many-body depletion interaction between anisotropic colloids in an implicit way, integrating out the degrees of freedom of the depletants, which we treat as an ideal gas. Because the depletant particles are statistically independent and the depletion interaction is short-ranged, depletants are randomly inserted in parallel into the excluded volume surrounding a single translated and/or rotated colloid. A configurational bias scheme is used to enhance the acceptance rate. The method is validated and benchmarked both on multi-core processors and graphics processing units for the case of hard spheres, hemispheres, and discoids. With depletants, we report novel cluster phases in which hemispheres first assemble into spheres, which then form ordered hcp/fcc lattices. The method is significantly faster than any method without cluster moves and that tracks depletants explicitly, for systems of colloid packing fraction ϕc < 0.50, and additionally enables simulation of the fluid-solid transition.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Michigan, 2800 Plymouth Rd., Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109, USA.
authors.forename: Jens
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Glaser
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Michigan, 2800 Plymouth Rd., Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109, USA.
authors.forename: Andrew S
authors.initials: AS
authors.lastname: Karas
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Michigan, 2800 Plymouth Rd., Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109, USA.
authors.forename: Sharon C
authors.initials: SC
authors.lastname: Glotzer