2023/04/04 by Qianhong Yang, Maoqiang Jiang, Yang, Qianhong +5 · 3 citations
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · Earth and Planetary Sciences · #Particle Dynamics in Fluid Flows #Micro and Nano Robotics #Aeolian processes and effects
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2304.01593
Active matter drives its constituent agents to move autonomously by harnessing free energy, leading to diverse emergent states with relevance to both biological processes and inanimate functionalities. Achieving maximum reconfigurability of active materials with minimal control remains a desirable yet challenging goal. Here, we employ large-scale, agent-resolved simulations to demonstrate that modulating the activity of a wet phoretic medium alone can govern its solid-liquid-gas phase transitions and, subsequently, laminar-turbulent transitions in fluid phases, thereby shaping its emergent pattern. These two progressively emerging transitions, hitherto unreported, bring us closer to perceiving the parallels between active matter and traditional matter. Our work reproduces and reconciles seemingly conflicting experimental observations on chemically active systems, presenting a unified landscape of phoretic collective dynamics. These findings enhance the understanding of long-range, many-body interactions among phoretic agents, offer new insights into their non-equilibrium collective behaviors, and provide potential guidelines for designing reconfigurable materials.