English

A phase separation of active colloidal suspension via Quorum-sensing

Soft Condensed Matter 2021-01-29 v2

Abstract

We present the Brownian dynamics simulation of active colloidal suspension in two dimensions, where the self-propulsion speed of a colloid is regulated according to the local density sensed by it. The role of concentration-dependent motility on the phase-separation of colloids and their dynamics is investigated in detail. Interestingly, the system phase separates at a very low packing fraction (Φ0.125\Phi\approx 0.125) at higher self-propulsion speeds (Pe\text{Pe}), which coexists with a homogeneous phase and attains long-range crystalline order beyond a transition point. The transition point is quantified here from the local density profiles, local and global-bond order parameters. We have shown that the phase diagram's characteristics are qualitatively akin to the active Brownian particle (ABP) model. Moreover, our investigation reveals that the density-dependent motility amplifies the slow-down of the directed speed, which facilitates phase-separation even at low packing fractions. The effective diffusivity shows a crossover from quadratic rise to a power-law behavior of exponent 3/23/2 with Pe\text{Pe} in the phase-separated regime. Furthermore, we have shown that the effective diffusion decreases exponentially with packing fraction in the phase-separated regime while linear decrease in the single phase regime.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2004.01996,
  title  = {A phase separation of active colloidal suspension via Quorum-sensing},
  author = {Francis Jose and Shalabh K. Anand and Sunil P. Singh},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2004.01996},
  year   = {2021}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-23T14:39:24.546Z