Improved tracking of particles with highly correlated motion

Abstract

Despite significant advances in particle imaging technologies over the past two decades, few advances have been made in particle tracking, i.e. linking individual particle positions across time series data. The state-of-the-art tracking algorithm is highly effective for systems in which the particles behave mostly independently. However, these algorithms become inaccurate when particle motion is highly correlated, such as in dense or strongly interacting systems. Accurate particle tracking is essential in the study of the physics of dense colloids, such as the study of dislocation formation, nucleation, and shear transformations. Here, we present a new method for particle tracking that incorporates information about the correlated motion of the particles. We demonstrate significant improvement over the state-of-the-art tracking algorithm in simulated data on highly correlated systems.