Fluctuations in a Locally Driven Exclusion Process in Dense Colloidal Suspensions


  Tamir Admon [1]  ,  David Mukamel [2]  ,  Yael Roichman [1]  
[1] Tel Aviv University
[2] Weizmann Institute of Science

We study fluctuations in the density and motion of colloidal particles in a quasi 2D system with exclusion forces. We use single particle tracking to monitor the particles. As a particle reaches a specific, predefined area A, it is dragged towards another neighboring predefined position B, by optical tweezers. This process continues until the system reaches steady state. At steady state, the stream lines of colloidal motion assume a dipole field shape with relative low density in A and high density in B. We compare our experimental results to theoretical prediction and confirm that density decays with distance from the local driving source as r-2.