FLUCTUATION INTERACTIONS OF COLLOIDAL PARTICLES
Ocampo-Delgado T., Ivlev B.

Received: August 22, 2009

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For like-charged colloidal particles, two mechanisms of attraction between them survive when the interparticle distance is larger than the Debye screening length. One of them is the conventional van der Waals attraction and the second is the attraction mechanism mediated by thermal fluctuations of particle position. The latter is related to the effective variable mass (Euler mass) of the particles produced by the fluid motion. The strongest attraction potential (up to the value of the temperature T) corresponds to the case of uncharged particles and a relatively large Debye screening length. In this case, the third attraction mechanism is involved. It is mediated by thermal fluctuations of the fluid density.