Flocking without alignment interactions in attractive active Brownian particles

Abstract

Within a simple model of attractive active Brownian particles, we predict flocking behavior and challenge the widespread idea that alignment interactions are necessary to observe this collective phenomenon. Here, we show that even non-aligning attractive interactions can lead to a flocking state. Monitoring the velocity polarization as the order parameter, we reveal the onset of a first-order transition from a disordered phase, characterized by several small clusters, to a flocking phase, where a single flocking cluster is emerging. The scenario is confirmed by studying the spatial connected correlation function of particle velocities, which reveals scale-free behavior in flocking states and exponential-like decay for non-flocking configurations. Our predictions can be tested in microscopic and macroscopic experiments showing flocking, such as animals, migrating cells, and active colloids.

References in corpus (62)

• Novel type of phase transition in a system of self-driven particles
• Active Particles in Complex and Crowded Environments
• Collective motion
• Interaction Ruling Animal Collective Behaviour Depends on Topological rather than Metric Distance: Evidence from a Field Study
• Motility-Induced Phase Separation
• Physics of Microswimmers - Single Particle Motion and Collective Behavior
• Dynamical clustering and phase separation in suspensions of self-propelled colloidal particles
• Athermal Phase Separation of Self-Propelled Particles with no Alignment
• Emergence of macroscopic directed motion in populations of motile colloids
• Collective motion of self-propelled particles interacting without cohesion
• How far from equilibrium is active matter?
• The 2019 Motile Active Matter Roadmap
• Physical Models of Collective Cell Migration
• Computational models for active matter
• Full phase diagram of active Brownian disks: from melting to motility-induced phase separation
• Flocking at a distance in active granular matter
• Effective Interactions in Active Brownian Suspensions
• Statistical Mechanics of Active Ornstein Uhlenbeck Particles
• Effective Cahn-Hilliard equation for the phase separation of active Brownian particles
• Collective behaviour without collective order in wild swarms of midges
• From Phase to Micro-Phase Separation in Flocking Models: The Essential Role of Non-Equilibrium Fluctuations
• Spontaneous velocity alignment in Motility-induced Phase Separation
• Multidimensional Stationary Probability Distribution for Interacting Active Particles
• Irreversibility in active matter systems: Fluctuation theorem and mutual information
• The Rotating Vicsek Model: Pattern Formation and Enhanced Flocking in Chiral Active Matter
• Flocking and turning: a new model for self-organized collective motion
• Negative interfacial tension in phase-separated active suspensions
• Reentrant Phase Behavior in Active Colloids with Attraction
• Generalized Thermodynamics of Phase Equilibria in Scalar Active Matter
• Minimal model of active colloids highlights the role of mechanical interactions in controlling the emergent behavior of active matter
• Motility-induced temperature difference in coexisting phases
• Dense active matter model of motion patterns in confluent cell monolayers
• Entropy production and fluctuation theorems for active matter
• Living clusters and crystals from low density suspensions of active colloids
• Viscoelastic control of spatiotemporal order in bacterial active matter
• Interrupted Motility Induced Phase Separation in Aligning Active Colloids
• Motility-Induced Microphase and Macrophase Separation in a Two-Dimensional Active Brownian Particle System
• Perspective: Nonequilibrium glassy dynamics in dense systems of active particles
• Motility-induced phase separation and coarsening in active matter
• Active phase separation by turning toward regions of higher density
• Dynamic scaling in natural swarms
• Emergent spatial structures in flocking models: a dynamical system insight
• A particle-field representation unifies paradigms in active matter
• Self-Organized Critical Coexistence Phase in Repulsive Active Particles
• Freezing a Flock: Motility-Induced Phase Separation in Polar Active Liquids
• Self-propelled hard disks: implicit alignment and transition to collective motion
• Capillary interfacial tension in active phase separation
• Morphology of clusters of attractive dry and wet self-propelled spherical particle suspensions
• Applicability of Effective Pair Potentials for Active Brownian Particles
• Effective equilibrium states in the colored-noise model for active matter I. Pairwise forces in the Fox and unified colored noise approximations
• Non-Equilibrium Surface Tension of the Vapour-Liquid Interface of Active Lennard-Jones Particles
• The Parental Active Model: a unifying stochastic description of self-propulsion
• Clustering and phase behaviour of attractive active particles with hydrodynamics
• Non-negative Interfacial Tension in Phase-Separated Active Brownian Particles
• Role of rotational inertia for collective phenomena in active matter
• Effect of self-propulsion on equilibrium clustering
• Marginal speed confinement resolves the conflict between correlation and control in natural flocks of birds
• Vapour-Liquid Coexistence of an Active Lennard-Jones fluid
• Self-assembly of active amphiphilic Janus particles
• Lane formation in a driven attractive fluid
• Hydrodynamics of Turning Flocks
• Phase separation of active Brownian particles in two dimensions: Anything for a quiet life

Cited by in corpus (19)

• Entropons as collective excitations in active solids
• Chiral active matter in external potentials
• Microscopic theory for hyperuniformity in two-dimensional chiral active fluid
• Spontaneous velocity alignment of Brownian particles with feedback-induced propulsion
• Experimental observation of gapped shear waves and liquid-like to gas-like dynamical crossover in active granular matter
• Phase behaviour and dynamics of three-dimensional active dumbbell systems
• Inhomogeneous entropy production in active crystals with point imperfections
• Dispersionless Flat Mode and Vibrational Anomaly in Active Brownian Vibrators Induced by String-like Dynamical Defects
• Vectorial active matter on the lattice: polar condensates and nematic filaments
• Geometric and Nonequilibrium Criticality in Run-and-Tumble Particles with Competing Motility and Attraction
• Minimal mechanism for flocking in phoretically interacting active particles
• Topological signatures of collective dynamics and turbulent-like energy cascades in apolar active granular
• Active Matter Flocking via Predictive Alignment
• Flocking transition in phoretically interacting active particles with pinning disorder
• Effective interactions in active Brownian particles
• Transverse Self-Propulsion Enhances the Aggregation of Active Dumbbells
• Density-dependent transport coefficients in two-dimensional cellular aggregates
• Shape-specific fluctuations of an active colloidal interface
• Individual particle persistence antagonizes global ordering in populations of nematically-aligning self-propelled particles