Bulk condensation by an active interface

Abstract

We present experiments, supported by mechanically detailed simulations, establishing bulk vapor-liquid condensation of a hard-bead fluid by a tiny population of orientable motile grains that self-assembles into a moving polarized monolayer. In a quasi-1D geometry two such layers, oppositely aligned, immobilize the condensed non-motile component. We account for our observations through a continuum theory with a naturally non-reciprocal Cahn-Hilliard structure, whose predicted trends as a function of packing fraction are consistent with our observations.

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• Motility-Induced Phase Separation
• Statistical Mechanics of Interacting Run-and-Tumble Bacteria
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• Nonreciprocity as a generic route to traveling states
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Cited by in corpus (3)

• Active phase separation: new phenomenology from non-equilibrium physics
• Reentrant phase behavior in binary topological flocks with nonreciprocal alignment
• Edge states, pairing, and sorting of motile chiral particles