Active binary mixtures of fast and slow hard spheres

TL;DR

This study investigates the phase behavior of binary mixtures of active particles with different velocities, revealing regimes of segregation and mixing, and extending kinetic theory to active/active systems.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive analysis of phase separation in active/active mixtures and extends existing kinetic theory to these systems.

Findings

Identified two regimes of behavior: segregated and homogeneously mixed dense phases.

Discovered how activity levels influence particle participation in dense phases.

Developed predictive expressions for particle participation based on total activity.

Abstract

We computationally studied the phase behavior and dynamics of binary mixtures of active particles, where each 'species' had distinct activities leading to distinct velocities, fast and slow. We obtained phase diagrams demonstrating motility-induced phase separation (MIPS) upon varying the activity and concentration of each species, and extended current kinetic theory of active/passive mixtures to active/active mixtures. We discovered two regimes of behavior quantified through the participation of each species in the dense phase compared to their monodisperse counterparts. In regime I (active/passive and active/weakly-active), we found that the dense phase was segregated by particle type into domains of fast and slow particles. Moreover, fast particles were suppressed from entering the dense phase while slow particles were enhanced entering the dense phase, compared to monodisperse systems of all-fast or all-slow particles. These effects decayed asymptotically as the activity of the slow species increased, approaching the activity of the fast species until they were negligible (regime II). In regime II, the dense phase was homogeneously mixed and each species participated in the dense phase as if it were it a monodisperse system; each species behaved as if it weren't mixed at all. Finally, we collapsed our data defining two quantities that measure the total activity of the system. We thus found expressions that predict, a priori, the percentage of each particle type that participates in the dense phase through MIPS.