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Screening, Hyperuniformity, and Instability in the Sedimentation of Irregular Objects

Tomer Goldfriend, Haim Diamant, and Thomas A. Witten
Phys. Rev. Lett. 118, 158005 – Published 14 April 2017
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Abstract

We study the overdamped sedimentation of non-Brownian objects of irregular shape using fluctuating hydrodynamics. The anisotropic response of the objects to flow, caused by their tendency to align with gravity, directly suppresses concentration and velocity fluctuations. This allows the suspension to avoid the anomalous fluctuations predicted for suspensions of symmetric spheroids. The suppression of concentration fluctuations leads to a correlated, hyperuniform structure. For certain object shapes, the anisotropic response may act in the opposite direction, destabilizing uniform sedimentation.

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  • Received 26 December 2016

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.118.158005

© 2017 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Polymers & Soft Matter

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Why Sediments Are So Uniform

Published 14 April 2017

A new theory suggests that sedimenting particles of irregular shape will drift horizontally as they fall, a result that may resolve a long-standing puzzle.

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Authors & Affiliations

Tomer Goldfriend*

  • Raymond & Beverly Sackler School of Physics and Astronomy, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel

Haim Diamant

  • Raymond & Beverly Sackler School of Chemistry, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel

Thomas A. Witten

  • Department of Physics and James Franck Institute, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA

  • *goldfriend@tau.ac.il
  • hdiamant@tau.ac.il
  • t-witten@uchicago.edu

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Issue

Vol. 118, Iss. 15 — 14 April 2017

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