Microscopic theory for hyperuniformity in two-dimensional chiral active fluid

TL;DR

This paper develops a microscopic hydrodynamic theory to explain hyperuniformity observed in two-dimensional chiral active fluids, aligning qualitative predictions with numerical findings and connecting to the random organization model.

Contribution

It introduces a microscopic derivation of hydrodynamics for chiral active matter that explains hyperuniformity and links it to existing models.

Findings

Hydrodynamic equations qualitatively reproduce hyperuniformity.

Hyperuniformity characterized by specific exponents matching numerical data.

Effective particle representation aligns with the random organization model.

Abstract

Some nonequilibrium systems exhibit anomalous suppression of the large-scale density fluctuations, so-called hyperuniformity. Recently, hyperuniformity was found numerically in a simple model of chiral active fluids [Q.-L. Lei et al., Sci. Adv. 5, eaau7423 (2019)]. We revisit this phenomenon and put forward a microscopic theory to explain it. An effective fluctuating hydrodynamic equation is derived for a simple particle model of chiral active matter. We show that the linear analysis of the obtained hydrodynamic equation captures hyperuniformity. Our theory yields hyperuniformity characterized by the same exponents as the numerical observation, but the agreement with the numerical data is qualitative. We also argue that the hydrodynamic equation for the effective particle representation, in which each rotating trajectory is regarded as an effective particle, has the same form as the macroscopic description of the random organization model with the center of mass conservation.