Magnetic microswimmers exhibit Bose-Einstein-like condensation
Abstract
We study an active matter system comprised of magnetic microswimmers confined in a microfluidic channel and show that it exhibits a new type of self-organized behavior. Combining analytical techniques and Brownian dynamics simulations, we demonstrate how the interplay of non-equilibrium activity, external driving, and magnetic interactions leads to the condensation of swimmers at the center of the channel via a non-equilibrium phase transition that is formally akin to Bose-Einstein condensation. We find that the effective dynamics of the microswimmers can be mapped onto a diffusivity-edge problem, and use the mapping to build a generalized thermodynamic framework, which is verified by a parameter-free comparison with our simulations. Our work reveals how driven active matter has the potential to generate exotic classical non-equilibrium phases of matter with traits that are analogous to those observed in quantum systems.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2010.02853,
title = {Magnetic microswimmers exhibit Bose-Einstein-like condensation},
author = {Fanlong Meng and Daiki Matsunaga and Benoît Mahault and Ramin Golestanian},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2010.02853},
year = {2021}
}