English

Density and Polarization of Active Brownian Particles in Curved Activity Landscapes

Soft Condensed Matter 2021-06-09 v2

Abstract

Suspensions of motile active particles with space dependent activity form characteristic polarization and density patterns. Recent single-particle studies for planar activity landscapes identified several quantities associated with emergent density-polarization patterns, including swim pressure, that are solely determined by bulk variables and thus constitute state functions. We show that for radially symmetric activity steps these variables depend on the curvature of the active-passive interface. In the specific case of total polarization and swim pressure, we generalize this result for arbitrary radially symmetric activity landscapes. Our exact as well as approximate analytical results agree with exact numerical calculations. We expect qualitatively the same results to hold for arbitrarily curved activity landscapes.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2101.04548,
  title  = {Density and Polarization of Active Brownian Particles in Curved Activity Landscapes},
  author = {Sven Auschra and Viktor Holubec},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2101.04548},
  year   = {2021}
}