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Updated: May 17, 2026

The Diffusion of Passive Tracers in Laminar Shear Flow
Published on: May 1, 2018
Reversal of tracer advection and Hall drift in an interacting chiral fluid
Erik Kalz1, Shashank Ravichandir2,3, Johannes Birkenmeier1
1University of Potsdam, Institute of Physics and Astronomy, D-14476 Potsdam, Germany.
Abstract:
Chiral fluids are defined by broken mirror or time-reversal symmetry, giving rise to tensorial transport coefficients with antisymmetric components. A key example is the odd mobility tensor, which governs the response of a chiral tracer to an applied force and induces a characteristic transverse drift. While this response is well understood in the infinite dilution limit, the impact of interparticle interactions on the tracer dynamics remains largely unexplored. Here, we conduct an analytical and computational study of a chiral fluid with interparticle interactions and show that, under an external driving force, a chiral tracer can undergo a complete reversal of both its transverse Hall drift and its advection along the force. This reversal emerges from the interplay between odd mobility and interaction-mediated forces, resulting in a phenomenon reminiscent of absolute negative mobility.
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