A universal state and its relaxation mechanisms of long-range interacting polygons

Hongchuan Shen, Hua Tong, Peng Tan () and Lei Xu ()
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Hongchuan Shen: Fudan University
Hua Tong: University of Tokyo
Peng Tan: Fudan University
Lei Xu: The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Nature Communications, 2019, vol. 10, issue 1, 1-8

Abstract: Abstract Using polygonal magnetic particles, we conduct experiments to explore the space-filling properties of anisotropic blocks with long-range interactions. In contrast to previous studies, we obtain the surprising finding that our systems’ structures do not depend on the shape of building blocks: a single state, the hexagonal plastic crystal, appears as a universal attractor for a wide range of different polygons. This robust particle-shape independency appears as the interactions go beyond nearest neighbors. Particle shape plays an essential role in system relaxation, and determines the basic relaxation dynamics through a microscopic control parameter, internal roughness, produced by particle vertices. Thus our study reveals a new pattern-forming paradigm, in which particle shape plays little role in the static structure but determines the essential relaxation dynamics. Due to the ubiquity of long-range interactions and anisotropic building blocks, our discovery may shed new light on diverse problems involving structure formation, self-assembly, and packing.

Date: 2019
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-09795-6

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