Collection of polar self-propelled particles with a modified alignment interaction

Sudipta Pattanayak, Shradha Mishra
2018 Journal of Physics Communications  
We study the disorder-to-order transition in a collection of polar self-propelled particles interacting through a distance dependent alignment interaction. Strength of the interaction, a^d (00, the system shows a transition from a disordered to an ordered state as a function of noise strength. We calculate the critical noise strength, η_c(a) for different a and compare it with the mean-field result. Nature of the disorder-to-order transition continuously changes from discontinuous to continuous
more » ... with decreasing a. We numerically estimate tri-critical point a_TCP at which the nature of transition changes from discontinuous to continuous. The density phase separation is large for a close to unity, and it decays with decreasing a. We also write the coarse-grained hydrodynamic equations of motion for general a, and find that the homogeneous ordered state is unstable to small perturbation as a approaches to 1. The instability in the homogeneous ordered state is consistent with the large density phase separation for a close to unity.
doi:10.1088/2399-6528/aab8cc fatcat:a3x57s7iy5cv5olkmbn5uys6ai