Issue 15, 2021

Spatial velocity correlations in inertial systems of active Brownian particles

Abstract

Recently, it has been discovered that systems of active Brownian particles (APB) at high density organise their velocities into coherent domains showing large spatial structures in the velocity field. This collective behavior occurs spontaneously, i.e. is not caused by any specific interparticle force favoring the alignment of the velocities. This phenomenon was investigated in the absence of thermal noise and in the overdamped regime where inertial forces could be neglected. In this work, we demonstrate through numerical simulations and theoretical analysis that velocity alignment is a robust property of ABP and persists even in the presence of inertial forces and thermal fluctuations. We also show that a single dimensionless parameter, such as the Péclet number customarily employed in the description of self-propelled particles, is not sufficient to fully characterize this phenomenon either in the regimes of large viscosity or small mass. Indeed, the size of the velocity domains, measured through the correlation length of the spatial velocity correlation, remains constant when the swim velocity increases and decreases as the rotational diffusion becomes larger. We find that, contrary to the common belief, the spatial velocity correlation not only depends on inertia but is also non-symmetrically affected by mass and inverse viscosity variations. We conclude that in self-propelled systems, at variance with passive systems, variations in the inertial time (mass over solvent viscosity) and mass act as independent control parameters. Finally, we highlight the non-thermal nature of the spatial velocity correlations that are fairly insensitive both to solvent and active temperatures.

Graphical abstract: Spatial velocity correlations in inertial systems of active Brownian particles

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
29 Tsh 2020
Accepted
17 Kol 2021
First published
26 Kol 2021

Soft Matter, 2021,17, 4109-4121

Spatial velocity correlations in inertial systems of active Brownian particles

L. Caprini and U. Marini Bettolo Marconi, Soft Matter, 2021, 17, 4109 DOI: 10.1039/D0SM02273J

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