Spontaneous velocity alignment in Motility-induced Phase Separation

TL;DR

This paper reveals that in motility-induced phase separation, particles spontaneously align their velocities forming vortex-like domains, driven by a hidden Vicsek-like interaction, which impacts the understanding of the phase transition.

Contribution

It uncovers a hidden alignment interaction in MIPS, showing velocity order emerges without explicit alignment, affecting theoretical descriptions of the transition.

Findings

Velocity alignment increases with persistence of self-propulsion

Particles form vortex-like domains with size scaling with persistence

A hidden Vicsek-like interaction explains velocity alignment

Abstract

We study a system of purely repulsive spherical self-propelled particles in the minimal set-up inducing Motility-Induced Phase Separation (MIPS). We show that, even if explicit alignment interactions are absent, a growing order in the velocities of the clustered particles accompanies MIPS. Particles arrange into aligned or vortex-like domains. Their sizes increase as the persistence of the self-propulsion grows, an effect that is quantified studying the spatial correlation function of the velocities. We explain the velocity-alignment by unveiling a hidden alignment interaction of the Vicsek-like form, induced by the interplay between steric interactions and self-propulsion. As a consequence, we argue that the MIPS transition cannot be fully understood in terms of a scalar field, the density, since the collective orientation of the velocities should be included in effective coarse-grained descriptions.