Immersed boundary method for dynamic simulation of polarizable colloids of arbitrary shape in explicit ion electrolytes

Abstract: We develop a computational method for modeling electrostatic interactions of arbitrarily-shaped, polarizable objects on colloidal length scales, including colloids/nanoparticles, polymers, and surfactants, dispersed in explicit ion electrolytes and nonionic solvents. Our method computes the nonuniform polarization charge distribution induced in a colloidal particle by both externally applied electric fields and local electric fields arising from other charged objects in the dispersion. This leads to expressions for electrostatic energies, forces, and torques that enable efficient molecular dynamics and Brownian dynamics simulations of colloidal dispersions in electrolytes, which can be harnessed to accurately predict structural and transport properties. We describe an implementation in which colloidal particles are modeled as rigid composites of small spherical beads that tessellate the surface of the particle. The electrostatics calculations are accelerated using a spectrally-accurate particle-mesh-Ewald technique implemented on a graphics processing unit (GPU) and regularized such that the electrostatic calculations are well-defined even for overlapping bodies. We demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach through a series of calculations, including the induced dipole moments and forces for one, two, and lattices of spherical colloids in an electric field; the induced dipole moment and torque for anisotropic particles in an electric field; the equilibrium distribution of ions in the double layer around charged colloids; the dynamics of charged colloids; and ions in the double layer around a polarizable colloid exposed to an electric field.