Theory, experiment, and simulations of a symmetric arrangement of quasi-two-dimensional magnetic fluid drops

A theoretical and experimental investigation of a symmetrical arrangement of N quasi-two-dimensional magnetic fluid drops in an external field is carried out. We observe that when the distance between drops is smaller than about one drop diameter, the interactions between drops have a dramatic impact on the pattern formation process. In these circumstances, the final patterns that form are quite predictable. This predictability can be understood qualitatively by finding the rotational preference of the drops early in the evolution process using an energy minimization approach. To investigate the final state patterns, we perform a series of numerical experiments that demonstrate good agreement with the experiments.