Social Physics of Bacteria: Avoidance of an Information Black Hole

TL;DR

This study investigates how bacteria collectively respond to information loss in a controlled microfluidic environment, revealing mechanisms of avoidance behavior through entropy analysis.

Contribution

It demonstrates that bacterial populations coordinate responses to avoid an information black hole, using a novel microfluidic setup and entropy-based analysis.

Findings

Bacteria collectively avoid the information black hole.

Entropy production indicates avoidance behavior.

Hydrodynamic flow influences bacterial response.

Abstract

Social physics explores responses to information exchange in a social network, and can be mapped down to bacterial collective signaling. Here, we explore how social inter-bacterial communication includes coordination of response to communication loss, as opposed to solitary searching for food, with collective response emergence at the population level. We present a 2-dimensional enclosed microfluidic environment that utilizes concentric rings of funnel ratchets, which direct motile E.coli bacteria towards a sole exit hole, an information ``black hole'', passage into the black hole irreversibly sweeps the bacteria away via hydrodynamic flow. We show that the spatiotemporal evolution of entropy production reveals how bacteria avoid crossing the hydrodynamic black hole information horizon.