Emergent long-range couplings in arrays of fluid cells.

Abstract

We present a system exhibiting extraordinarily long-range cooperative effects, on a length scale far exceeding the bulk correlation length. We give a theoretical explanation of these phenomena based on the mesoscopic picture of phase coexistence in finite systems, which is confirmed by MonteCarlo simulation studies. Our work demonstrates that such action at a distance can occur in classical systems involving simple or complex fluids, such as colloid-polymer mixtures or ferromagnets.