Various phases of active matter emerging from bacteria and their implications

TL;DR

This paper reviews how bacterial populations serve as a model for active matter, exploring different phases like active gas, liquid, glass, and liquid crystal, and discusses future research directions.

Contribution

It characterizes various active matter phases in bacteria and discusses their implications for physics and biology, highlighting differences from thermal systems.

Findings

Bacterial populations exhibit diverse active matter phases.

Active phases differ significantly from their thermal counterparts.

Future research directions are proposed to deepen understanding of active matter.

Abstract

In this perspective article, we discuss bacterial populations as a model system of active matter. It allows for the exploration and characterization of various phases of active matter and brings rich implications for both physics and biology. Specifically, we focus on active gas, active liquid, active glass and active liquid crystal states observed in bacterial populations and describe how these differ from their thermal counterparts. A few future directions are also discussed that will deepen the physical interest in active matter as a new type of material, with its implications for several life phenomena observed in bacterial populations and other biological systems.