title: Colloidal suspensions of C-particles: Entanglement, percolation and microrheology.
abstract: We explore structural and dynamical behavior of concentrated colloidal suspensions made up by C-shape particles using Brownian dynamics computer simulations and theory. In particular, we focus on the entanglement process between nearby particles for almost closed C-shapes with a small opening angle. Depending on the opening angle and the particle concentration, there is a percolation transition for the cluster of entangled particles which shows the classical scaling characteristics. In a broad density range below the percolation threshold, we find a stretched exponential function for the dynamical decorrelation of the entanglement process. Finally, we study a setup typical in microrheology by dragging a single tagged particle with constant speed through the suspension. We measure the cluster connected to and dragged with this tagged particle. In agreement with a phenomenological theory, the size of the dragged cluster depends on the dragging direction and increases markedly with the dragging speed.
authors.affiliation: Institut für Theoretische Physik II: Weiche Materie, Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf, Universitätsstraße 1, D-40225 Düsseldorf, Germany.
authors.forename: Christian
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Hoell
authors.affiliation: Institut für Theoretische Physik II: Weiche Materie, Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf, Universitätsstraße 1, D-40225 Düsseldorf, Germany.
authors.forename: Hartmut
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Löwen