BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//Talks.cam//talks.cam.ac.uk// X-WR-CALNAME:Talks.cam BEGIN:VEVENT SUMMARY:Colloidal chains in transverse confinement - John Ryan-purcell (Tr inity College Dublin) DTSTART:20230824T133000Z DTEND:20230824T140000Z UID:TALK204037@talks.cam.ac.uk DESCRIPTION:Much work has been done on the study of structures formed by b oth hard and soft spheres held in transverse confining potentials. These s tructures self-assemble under the action of their confining potentials\, f orming interesting columnar structures. Here we will present an overview o f these structures and their formation.\n \;\nFirstly\, we consider a horizontal line of contacting spheres held in a transverse cylindrically s ymmetric confining potential. This system buckles under compression\, or w hen tilted away from the horizontal once a critical tilt angle is exceeded . Initially these buckled structures contain only nearest-neighbour contac ts between spheres\, however there is a structure at a critical point of c ompression (referred to as the doublet structure) at which next-nearest ne ighbours contacts form and more complex structures develop.\n \;\nFor the case of hard spheres at compressions below the doublet structure\, it is possible to formulate a continuous description of the displacement prof ile formed by the buckled line of spheres. The profiles are well described by numerical solutions of a second-order differential equation. These sol utions are discussed in detail\, and shown how they may be approximated by the well-known Jacobi\, Whittaker and Airy functions.\n \;\nBeyond th is doublet structure\, in the case of both hard and soft spheres\, the mor e complicated structures emerge. These structures are explored computation ally\, employing the Morse-Witten model to study the assembly of the soft sphere structures. LOCATION:External END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR