%0 Journal Article
%T Mean-field microrheology of a very soft colloidal suspension: inertia induces shear-thickening
%A Vincent D¨Śmery
%J Physics
%D 2015
%I arXiv
%R 10.1103/PhysRevE.91.062301
%X Colloidal suspensions have a rich rheology and can exhibit shear-thinning as well as shear-thickening. Numerical simulations recently suggested that shear-thickening may be attributed to the inertia of the colloids, besides the hydrodynamic interactions between them. Here, we consider the ideal limit of a dense bath of soft colloids following an underdamped Langevin dynamics. We use a mean-field equation for the colloidal density to get an analytical expression of the drag force felt by a probe pulled at constant velocity through the suspension. Our results show that inertia can indeed induce shear-thickening by allowing density waves to propagate through the suspension.
%U http://arxiv.org/abs/1503.00988v2