Ground state of electrorheological fluids from Monte Carlo simulations

Abstract

We use Monte Carlo simulations to investigate the ground state of electrorheological (ER) fluids in a strong electric field. Our results suggest a body-centered tetragonal (bct) lattice with conventional Bravais vectors ${\mathbf{a}}_{1}$= \ensuremath{\surd}6 ax^, ${\mathbf{a}}_{2}$= \ensuremath{\surd}6 ay^, and ${\mathbf{a}}_{3}$=2az^ where a is the radius of dielectric spheres and the z axis is the direction of the applied electric field. This bct lattice can be regarded as a compound of chains of class A and class B where chains of class B are obtained from chains of class A by shifting a distance of a in the z direction. For typical ER systems, this bct structure can be formed at room temperature.