Biomedical subjects

Erik Luijten

Publications and source records attributed to Erik Luijten.

5 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2004

Stabilization of colloidal suspensions by means of highly charged nanoparticles.

We employ a novel Monte Carlo simulation scheme to elucidate the stabilization of neutral colloidal microspheres by means of highly charged nanoparticles [Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 98, 8950 (2001))]]. In accordance with the experimental observations, we find that small nanoparticle concentrations induce an effective repulsion that prevents gelation caused by the intrinsic van der Waals attraction between colloids. Higher nanoparticle concentrations induce an attractive potential which is, however, qualitatively different from the regular depletion attraction. We also show how colloid-nanoparticle size asymmetry and nanoparticle charge can be used to manipulate the effective interactions.

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PubMed2004

Rejection-free geometric cluster algorithm for complex fluids.

We present a novel, generally applicable Monte Carlo algorithm for the simulation of fluid systems. Geometric transformations are used to identify clusters of particles in such a manner that every cluster move is accepted, irrespective of the nature of the pair interactions. The rejection-free and nonlocal nature of the algorithm make it particularly suitable for the efficient simulation of complex fluids with components of widely varying size, such as colloidal mixtures. Compared to conventional simulation algorithms, typical efficiency improvements amount to several orders of magnitude.

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PubMed2003

Precise simulation of near-critical fluid coexistence.

We present a novel method to derive liquid-gas coexisting densities, rho(+/-)(T), from grand canonical simulations (without knowledge of T(c) or criticality class). The minima of Q(L) identical with (2)(L)/ (L) in an LxLxL box with m=rho- (L) are used to generate recursively an unbiased universal finite-size scaling function. Monte Carlo data for a hard-core square-well fluid and for the restricted primitive model electrolyte yield rho(+/-) to +/-1%-2% of rho(c) down to 1 part in 10(4)-10(3) of T(c) (and confirm well Ising character). Pressure mixing in the scaling fields is unequivocally revealed and indicates Yang-Yang ratios R(mu)=-0.04(4) and 0.2(6) for the two models, respectively.

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PubMed2002

Boundary between long-range and short-range critical behavior in systems with algebraic interactions.

We investigate phase transitions of two-dimensional Ising models with power-law interactions, using an efficient Monte Carlo algorithm. For slow decay, the transition is of the mean-field type; for fast decay, it belongs to the short-range Ising universality class. We focus on the intermediate range, where the critical exponents depend continuously on the power law. We find that the boundary with short-range critical behavior occurs for interactions depending on distance r as r(-15/4). This answers a long-standing controversy between mutually conflicting renormalization-group analyses.

Algorithms↗

PubMed2002

Universality class of criticality in the restricted primitive model electrolyte.

The 1:1 equisized hard-sphere electrolyte or restricted primitive model has been simulated via grand-canonical fine-discretization Monte Carlo. Newly devised unbiased finite-size extrapolation methods using loci in the temperature-density or (T,rho) plane of isothermal rho(2-k) vs pressure inflections, of Q identical with (2)/ maxima, and of canonical and C(V) criticality, yield estimates of (T(c),rho(c)) to +/-(0.04,3)%. Extrapolated exponents and Q ratio are (gamma,nu,Q(c)) = [1.24(3), 0.63(3); 0.624(2)], which support Ising (n = 1) behavior with (1.23(9), 0.630(3); 0.623(6)), but exclude classical, XY (n = 2), self-avoiding walk (n = 0), and n = 1 criticality with potentials varphi(r)>Phi/r(4.9) when r-->infinity.

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