Heating leads to liquid-crystal and crystalline order in a two-temperature active fluid of rods

Abstract

We report phase separation and liquid-crystal ordering induced by scalar activity in a system of Soft Repulsive Spherocylinders (SRS) of aspect ratio $L/D=5$. Activity was introduced by increasing the temperature of half of the SRS (labeled \textit{`hot'}) while maintaining the temperature of the other half constant at a lower value (labeled \textit{`cold'}). The difference between the two temperatures scaled by the lower temperature provides a measure of the activity. Starting from different equilibrium initial phases, we find that activity leads to segregation of the hot and cold particles. Activity also drives the cold particles through a phase transition to a more ordered state and the hot particles to a state of less order compared to the initial equilibrium state. The cold components of a homogeneous isotropic (I) structure acquire nematic (N) and, at higher activity, crystalline (K) order. Similarly, the cold zone of a nematic initial state undergoes smectic (Sm) and crystal ordering above a critical value of activity while the hot component turns isotropic. We find that the hot particles occupy a larger volume and exert an extra kinetic pressure, confining, compressing and provoking an ordering transition of the cold-particle domains.

19 pages, 21 figures

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Cited by in corpus (3)

• Helical Flow States in Active Nematics
• Two-temperature activity induces liquid-crystal phases inaccessible in equilibrium
• Entropy of different phases formed by soft rods