Otherwise identical particles with differing, fixed speeds demix under time-reversible dynamics

Abstract

In recent years situations where elsewise identical particles demix when different degrees of freedom do not thermalize have become a research focus in nonequilibrium statistical mechanics. The majority of these models are formulated in the context of active particles, but the phenomenon also occurs for particles without driving. All the models studied so far share the property that they do not obey microscopic reversibility, and it may be thought that this is a necessary condition for such demixing to occur. We show here that such a demixing transition also occurs in a mixture of otherwise identical particles moving at two fixed but different speeds according to a time-reversible quasi-Newtonian dynamics. The mechanical instability underlying this behavior is generated by the lack of thermalization between the two subsystems, which is shared by all systems showing this behavior.