Macro to micro phase separation in a collection of chiral active swimmers

TL;DR

This study investigates how chirality influences phase separation and clustering in active particles, revealing three distinct phases depending on activity and chirality levels through extensive numerical simulations.

Contribution

It provides a detailed phase diagram of chiral active particles, highlighting the effects of activity and chirality on clustering and phase behavior, which advances understanding of micro swimmer dynamics.

Findings

Enhanced phase separation at low chirality with high activity

Micro clustered phase at moderate chirality

No clustering at high chirality due to confinement

Abstract

We studied a collection of chiral active particles (CAP) on a two dimensional substrate using extensive numerical study. Particles interact through soft repulsive interaction. The activity and chirality of particles is tuned by varying their self-propulsion speed and angular velocity respectively. Kinetics and steady state properties of particles are studied for different chirality and activity. The phase diagram of system on the plane of activity and chirality shows three distinct phases. For small chirality when activity is dominant, particles show enhanced dynamics and macroscopic phase separation of ordered clusters is observed. For moderate chirality, micro clustered phase is observed in which small clusters with moderate ordering are formed. For large chirality, when chirality dominates, no clustering is found because particle motion is mainly confined to its location. Our study gives a detail insight into the effect of chirality on the properties of collection of CAP, which can be useful to understand the dynamics and steady state of many natural micro swimmers.