Hyperuniformity in active fluids reshapes nucleation and capillary-wave dynamics
arXiv:2602.20308 · doi:10.1103/kl3b-ct4p
Abstract
While nucleation in typical active and driven fluids often appears equilibrium-like, striking departures emerge when large-scale fluctuations are strongly suppressed. Here, we investigate nucleation in nonequilibrium hyperuniform fluids by projecting the full density-field dynamics onto relevant collective variables. We demonstrate that nucleation is governed by a nonequilibrium quasipotential rather than the reversible work of formation. Surprisingly, because of the reduced hyperuniform fluctuations, the nucleation probability no longer separates into the usual surface and volume contributions. Furthermore, accounting for capillary waves reveals a clear breakdown of detailed balance driven by nonreciprocal dynamics. More broadly, our framework can be readily extended to identify nonequilibrium signatures in conventional active fluids.
Editors' Suggestion
References in corpus (46)
- Stochastic thermodynamics, fluctuation theorems, and molecular machines
- The large deviation approach to statistical mechanics
- Forward Flux Sampling for rare event simulations
- The Three Faces of the Second Law: II. Fokker-Planck Formulation
- Hyperuniformity of critical absorbing states
- Non-Equilibrium Strongly Hyperuniform Fluids of Circle Active Particles with Large Local Density Fluctuations
- Hyperuniformity and its Generalizations
- Hyperuniform density fluctuations and diverging dynamic correlations in periodically driven colloidal suspensions
- Hydrodynamics of Random-Organizing Hyperuniform Fluids
- A classical nucleation theory description of active colloid assembly
- Noise, diffusion, and hyperuniformity
- A dynamical theory of nucleation for colloids and macromolecules
- Effects of shear flow on phase nucleation and crystallization
- Classical nucleation theory from a dynamical approach to nucleation
- Thermodynamics of active field theories: Energetic cost of coupling to reservoirs
- Active phase separation: new phenomenology from non-equilibrium physics
- Classical Nucleation Theory for Active Fluid Phase Separation
- Overdamped stochastic thermodynamics with multiple reservoirs
- Two-dimensional crystals far from equilibrium
- Nucleation pathway and kinetics of phase-separating active Brownian particles
- Interface Fluctuations, Burgers Equations, and Coarsening under Shear
- Nucleation of chemically active droplets
- Critical active dynamics is captured by a colored-noise driven field theory
- Microscopic theory for hyperuniformity in two-dimensional chiral active fluid
- Systematically extending classical nucleation theory
- Time-reversal symmetry violations and entropy production in field theories of polar active matter
- Interface roughening in nonequilibrium phase-separated systems
- Methods and Conversations in (Post)Modern Thermodynamics
- Hyperuniformity in the Manna Model, Conserved Directed Percolation and Depinning
- Non-equilibrium dynamic hyperuniform states
- Nonequilibrium interfacial properties of chemically driven fluids
- Enhancing (quasi-)long-range order in a two-dimensional driven crystal
- Correlated Noise and Critical Dimensions
- Hexatic Undulations in Curved Geometries
- Long-range translational order and hyperuniformity in two-dimensional chiral active crystal
- Harmonic chain far from equilibrium: single-file diffusion, long-range order, and hyperuniformity
- Homogeneous Nucleation of Sheared Liquids: Advances and Insights from Simulations and Theory
- Hyperuniformity and conservation laws in non-equilibrium systems
- Long-range order in two-dimensional systems with fluctuating active stresses
- How does a hyperuniform fluid freeze?
- Interfacial roughening in field theory
- Hyperuniform interfaces in non-equilibrium phase coexistence
- The Mechanics of Nucleation and Growth and the Surface Tensions of Active Matter
- Interfacial and density fluctuations in a lattice model of motility-induced phase separation
- Stochastic Thermodynamics and Hierarchy of Fluctuation Theorems with Multiple Reservoirs
- Emergent universal long-range structure in random-organizing systems