Living materials such as biological tissues or bacterial colonies are collections of heterogeneous entities of different sizes, capable of autonomous motion, and often capable of cooperating. Such a degree of complexity brings to collective motion on large scales. However, how the competition between geometrical frustration, autonomous motion, and the tendency to move cooperatively impact large-scale behavior remains an open question. We implement those three ingredients in a model of active matter and show that the system, in forming migratory patterns, can arrange in bands or develop long-range order, depending on the density of the system. We also show that the active material undergoes a reentrant glass transition triggered by the alignment interaction that typically causes only collective migratory motion. Finally, we observe that polar order destroys active phase separation, producing homogeneous, disordered moving configurations.
@article{arxiv.2205.15643,
title = {From flocking to glassiness in dense disordered polar Active Matter},
author = {Matteo Paoluzzi and Demian Levis and Ignacio Pagonabarraga},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2205.15643},
year = {2024}
}