Eur. Phys. J. E (2013) 36: 126
https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/i2013-13126-8

Regular Article

Evolution of topological defects in two-dimensional quenched colloidal systems

¹ Institute of Theoretical Physics, Lanzhou University, 730000, Lanzhou, China
² Center of soft matter physics and its applications, Beihang Univeristy, 100191, Beijing, China
³ School of Physics and Nuclear Energy Engineering, Beihang University, 100191, Beijing, China
⁴ Department of Mathematics, Kings College London, WC2R 2LS, London, UK

^* e-mail: ychen@buaa.edu.cn

Received: 12 February 2013
Revised: 3 July 2013
Accepted: 27 September 2013
Published online: 29 October 2013

Abstract

We investigated the evolution of topological defects in two-dimensional (2D) quenched colloidal systems using topological current theory. As a singularity of topological currents in order parameter fields, a topological defect is associated with three cases of solutions of zero points: the isolation solution, the limit point, and the bifurcation point. At the limit point, the defects represent a generation or annihilation process, and the number of defects satisfies a power law time-dependent scaling behaviour N _d ∝ t ⁻¹ . At the bifurcation point, a merging or splitting process appears and N _d ∝ t ⁻² . These properties are in agreement with the results from Brownian dynamics simulations of the quenching processes in 2D colloidal systems with a Yukawa pair interaction.