Aggregation of magnetic holes in a rotating magnetic field

Abstract

We experimentally investigated field-induced aggregation of nonmagnetic particles confined in a magnetic fluid layer when rotating magnetic fields were applied. After application of a magnetic field rotating in the plane of the fluid layer, the single particles start to form two-dimensional clusters, like dimers, trimers, and more complex structures. These clusters aggregated again and again to form bigger clusters. During this nonequilibrium process, a broad range of cluster sizes was formed, and the scaling exponents z and z;{'} of the number of clusters N(t) approximately t;{-z;{'}} and average cluster size S(t) approximately t;{z} were calculated. The process could be characterized as diffusion-limited cluster-cluster aggregation. We found that all sizes of clusters that occurred during an experiment fall on a single curve, as the dynamic scaling theory predicts. However, the characteristic scaling exponents z;{'},z and crossover exponents Delta were not universal. A particle tracking method was used to find the dependence of the diffusion coefficients D_{s} on cluster size s . The cluster motions show features of Brownian motion. The average diffusion coefficients D_{s} depend on the cluster size s as a power law D_{s} proportional, variants;{gamma} where values of gamma as different as gamma=-0.62+/-0.19 and gamma=-2.08+/-0.51 were found in two of the experiments.