A phase separation of active colloidal suspension via Quorum-sensing
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 () at higher self-propulsion speeds (), 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 with 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}
}