| Issue |
EPL
Volume 120, Number 1, October 2017
|
|
|---|---|---|
| Article Number | 14001 | |
| Number of page(s) | 7 | |
| Section | Electromagnetism, Optics, Acoustics, Heat Transfer, Classical Mechanics, and Fluid Dynamics | |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1209/0295-5075/120/14001 | |
| Published online | 28 December 2017 | |
Collective rotations of active particles interacting with obstacles
1 Institut für Theoretische Physik, Georg-August-Universität - 37077 Göttingen, Germany
2 Institut für Mathematische Stochastik, Georg-August-Universität - 37077 Göttingen, Germany
Received: 21 August 2017
Accepted: 24 November 2017
We consider active particles in a heterogeneous medium, modeled by static, random obstacles. In accordance with the known tendency of active particles to cluster, we observe accumulation and crystallization of active particles around the obstacles which serve as nucleation sites. In the limit of high activity, the crystals start to rotate spontaneously, resembling a rotating rigid body. We trace the occurrence of these oscillations to the enhanced attraction of particles whose orientation points along the rotational velocity as compared to those whose orientation points in the opposite direction.
PACS: 47.63.Gd – Swimming microorganisms / 05.40.-a – Fluctuation phenomena, random processes, noise, and Brownian motion / 87.18.Hf – Spatiotemporal pattern formation in cellular populations
© EPLA, 2017
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