Influence of interaction softness in phase separation of active particles
Abstract
Using a minimal model of active Brownian discs, we study the effect of a crucial parameter, namely the softness of the inter-particle repulsion, on motility-induced phase separation. We show that an increase in particle softness reduces the ability of the system to phase-separate and the system exhibit a delayed transition. After phase separation, the system state properties can be explained by a single relevant lengthscale, the effective inter-particle distance. We estimate this lengthscale analytically and use it to rescale the state properties at dense phase for systems with different interaction softness. Using this lengthscale, we provide a scaling relation for the time taken to phase separate which shows a high sensitivity to the interaction softness.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2101.12055,
title = {Influence of interaction softness in phase separation of active particles},
author = {Monika Sanoria and Raghunath Chelakkot and Amitabha Nandi},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2101.12055},
year = {2021}
}
Comments
8 pages, 12 figures. Significant changes: The form of the critical radius rc is new, with a better physical understanding of the system. Which neither changes the scaling nor the exponenets of the system. Fig.11 is a new addition in the appendix