Structural nonequilibrium forces in driven colloidal systems

Abstract: We identify a structural one-body force field that sustains spatial inhomogeneities in nonequilibrium overdamped Brownian many-body systems. The structural force is perpendicular to the local flow direction, it is free of viscous dissipation, it is microscopically resolved in both space and and time, and it can stabilize density gradients. From the time evolution in the exact (Smoluchowski) low-density limit, Brownian dynamics simulations and a novel power functional approximation, we obtain a quantitative understanding of viscous and structural forces, including memory and shear migration.