title: Small Activity Differences Drive Phase Separation in Active-Passive Polymer Mixtures.
abstract: Recent theoretical studies found that mixtures of active and passive colloidal particles phase separate but only at very high activity ratio. The high value poses serious obstacles for experimental exploration of this phenomenon. Here we show using simulations that when the active and passive particles are polymers, the critical activity ratio decreases with the polymer length. This not only facilitates the experiments but also has implications on the DNA organization in living cell nuclei. Entropy production can be used as an accurate indicator of this nonequilibrium phase transition.
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research, Ackermannweg 10, 55128 Mainz, Germany.
authors.forename: Jan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Smrek
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research, Ackermannweg 10, 55128 Mainz, Germany.
authors.forename: Kurt
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kremer