Abstract
Microscopic plastic spheres dispersed in a magnetic fluid are moved around by an external ac magnetic field. The spheres are confined to move in a thin layer between two plane parallel glass plates and may be observed in a light microscope. An n-strand braid records the particle trajectories. The fluctuations of these braids are investigated, and a wide range of dynamical behaviour is observed. For certain parameter values the fluctuations are highly intermittent and there is a hierarchical ordering of the dynamics in both space and time. In this case the motion is well modelled by a one-dimensional Lévy walk.
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References
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Skjeltorp, A.T., Clausen, S., Helgesen, G. (2000). Complex Particle Dynamics Described by Braid Statistics. In: Skjeltorp, A.T., Edwards, S.F. (eds) Soft Condensed Matter: Configurations, Dynamics and Functionality. NATO Science Series, vol 552. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-4189-5_17
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-4189-5_17
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