Particle dynamics in fluids with random interactions

LS Shagolsem and Y Rabin, JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL PHYSICS, 144, 194504 (2016).

DOI: 10.1063/1.4949546

We study the dynamics of particles in a multi-component 2d Lennard-Jones (LJ) fluid in the limiting case where all the particles are different (APD). The equilibrium properties of this APD system were studied in our earlier work L. S. Shagolsem et al., J. Chem. Phys. 142, 051104 (2015).. We use molecular dynamics simulations to investigate the statistical properties of particle trajectories in a temperature range covering both the fluid and the solid-fluid coexistence region. We calculate the mean-square displacement as well as displacement, angle, and waiting time distributions, and compare the results with those for one-component LJ fluid. As temperature is lowered, the dynamics of the APD system becomes increasingly complex, as the intrinsic difference between the particles is amplified by neighborhood identity ordering and by the inhomogeneous character of the solid-fluid coexistence region. The ramifications of our results for the analysis of protein tracking experiments in living cells are discussed. Published by AIP Publishing.

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