Collective states of active matter with stochastic reversals: emergent chiral states and spontaneous current switching

TL;DR

This paper investigates how active particles with topological interactions and reversals exhibit emergent phenomena like chiral states and collective reversals, depending on interaction and reversal rates, advancing understanding of active matter dynamics.

Contribution

It introduces a model capturing the effects of reversals and topological interactions, revealing new collective behaviors in active matter systems.

Findings

Spontaneous formation of collective chiral states due to phase synchronization.

Emergence of collective directional reversals under confinement.

Dependence of phenomena on interaction relaxation time and reversal rate.

Abstract

We study collective dynamical behavior of active particles with topological interactions and directional reversals. Surprising phenomena are shown to emerge as the interaction relaxation time is varied relative to the reversal rate, such as spontaneous formation of collective chiral states due to phase synchronization, and collective directional reversals in the presence of confinement. The results have a direct relevance to modelling and understanding collective reversals and synchronization phenomena in active matter.