Microscopic theory of a Janus motor in a non-equilibrium fluid: Surface hydrodynamics and boundary conditions.

Abstract

We present a derivation from the first principles of the coupled equations of motion of an active self-diffusiophoretic Janus motor and the hydrodynamic densities of its fluid environment that are nonlinearly displaced from equilibrium. The derivation makes use of time-dependent projection operator techniques defined in terms of slowly varying coarse-grained microscopic densities of the fluid species number, total momentum, and energy. The exact equations of motion are simplified using time scale arguments, resulting in Markovian equations for the Janus motor linear and angular velocities with average forces and torques that depend on the fluid densities. For a large colloid, the fluid equations are separated into bulk and interfacial contributions, and the conditions under which the dynamics of the fluid densities can be accurately represented by bulk hydrodynamic equations subject to boundary conditions on the colloid are determined. We show how the results for boundary conditions based on continuum theory can be obtained from the molecular description and provide Green-Kubo expressions for all transport coefficients, including the diffusiophoretic coupling and the slip coefficient.