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Athermal Phase Separation of Self-Propelled Particles with No Alignment

2012/01/31 by Yaouen Fily, M. Cristina Marchetti · 1,152 citations
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Engineering · Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Active matter #Chemical physics #Classical mechanics #Condensed matter physics #Isotropy #Materials science #Micro and Nano Robotics #Modular Robots and Swarm Intelligence #Nanotechnology #Optics #Phase (matter) #Physics #Pickering emulsions and particle stabilization #Polar #Propulsion #Quantum mechanics #Self-assembly #Statistical physics #Thermodynamics #Work (physics) #cond-mat.soft #q-bio.CB

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.108.235702

published in Physical Review Letters 108(23), 235702 (American Physical Society) · 5 pages, 4 figures

arxiv created 2012/04/01 · openalex publication_date 2012/06/08 · arxiv updated 2014/02/24 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06

Abstract

We study numerically and analytically a model of self-propelled polar disks on a substrate in two dimensions. The particles interact via isotropic repulsive forces and are subject to rotational noise, but there is no aligning interaction. As a result, the system does not exhibit an ordered state. The isotropic fluid phase separates well below close packing and exhibits the large number fluctuations and clustering found ubiquitously in active systems. Our work shows that this behavior is a generic property of systems that are driven out of equilibrium locally, as for instance by self-propulsion.

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