Effective temperature and glassy dynamics of active matter

TL;DR

This paper develops an analytical framework for active matter systems, showing that their steady states and responses can be described using an effective temperature influenced by motor activity and susceptibility, aligning with simulations and experiments.

Contribution

It introduces a systematic expansion of the master equation for active matter, deriving an effective temperature description that captures steady states and aging phenomena.

Findings

Effective temperature depends on motor susceptibility and Peclet number.

Analytic predictions agree with numerical simulations and experiments.

Provides a kinetic description of aging in active matter.

Abstract

A systematic expansion of the many-body master equation for active matter, in which motors power configurational changes as in the cytoskeleton, is shown to yield a description of the steady state and responses in terms of an effective temperature. The effective temperature depends on the susceptibility of the motors and a Peclet number which measures their strength relative to thermal Brownian diffusion. The analytic prediction is shown to agree with previous numerical simulations and experiments. The mapping also establishes a description of aging in active matter that is also kinetically jammed.