651 research outputs found
The Mechanics and Statistics of Active Matter
Active particles contain internal degrees of freedom with the ability to take
in and dissipate energy and, in the process, execute systematic movement.
Examples include all living organisms and their motile constituents such as
molecular motors. This article reviews recent progress in applying the
principles of nonequilibrium statistical mechanics and hydrodynamics to form a
systematic theory of the behaviour of collections of active particles -- active
matter -- with only minimal regard to microscopic details. A unified view of
the many kinds of active matter is presented, encompassing not only living
systems but inanimate analogues. Theory and experiment are discussed side by
side.Comment: This review is to appear in volume 1 of the Annual Review of
Condensed Matter Physics in July 2010 and is posted here with permission from
that journa
Effect of the orientational relaxation on the collective motion of patterns formed by self-propelled particles
We investigate the collective behavior of self-propelled particles (SPPs)
undergoing competitive processes of pattern formation and rotational relaxation
of their self-propulsion velocities. In full accordance with previous work, we
observe transitions between different steady states of the SPPs caused by the
intricate interplay among the involved effects of pattern formation,
orientational order, and coupling between the SPP density and orientation
fields. Based on rigorous analytical and numerical calculations, we prove that
the rate of the orientational relaxation of the SPP velocity field is the main
factor determining the steady states of the SPP system. Further, we determine
the boundaries between domains in the parameter plane that delineate
qualitatively different resting and moving states. In addition, we analytically
calculate the collective velocity of the SPPs and show that it
perfectly agrees with our numerical results. We quantitatively demonstrate that
does not vanish upon approaching the transition boundary between the
moving pattern and homogeneous steady states.Comment: 3 Figure
Entropy evaluation sheds light on ecosystem complexity
Preserving biodiversity and ecosystem stability is a challenge that can be
pursued through modern statistical mechanics modeling. Here we introduce a
variational maximum entropy-based algorithm to evaluate the entropy in a
minimal ecosystem on a lattice in which two species struggle for survival. The
method quantitatively reproduces the scale-free law of the prey shoals size,
where the simpler mean-field approach fails: the direct near neighbor
correlations are found to be the fundamental ingredient describing the system
self-organized behavior. Furthermore, entropy allows the measurement of
structural ordering, that is found to be a key ingredient in characterizing two
different coexistence behaviors, one where predators form localized patches in
a sea of preys and another where species display more complex patterns. The
general nature of the introduced method paves the way for its application in
many other systems of interest.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figure
Universality in Bacterial Colonies
The emergent spatial patterns generated by growing bacterial colonies have
been the focus of intense study in physics during the last twenty years. Both
experimental and theoretical investigations have made possible a clear
qualitative picture of the different structures that such colonies can exhibit,
depending on the medium on which they are growing. However, there are
relatively few quantitative descriptions of these patterns. In this paper, we
use a mechanistically detailed simulation framework to measure the scaling
exponents associated with the advancing fronts of bacterial colonies on hard
agar substrata, aiming to discern the universality class to which the system
belongs. We show that the universal behavior exhibited by the colonies can be
much richer than previously reported, and we propose the possibility of up to
four different sub-phases within the medium-to-high nutrient concentration
regime. We hypothesize that the quenched disorder that characterizes one of
these sub-phases is an emergent property of the growth and division of bacteria
competing for limited space and nutrients.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figure
Effects of anisotropic interactions on the structure of animal groups
This paper proposes an agent-based model which reproduces different
structures of animal groups. The shape and structure of the group is the effect
of simple interaction rules among individuals: each animal deploys itself
depending on the position of a limited number of close group mates. The
proposed model is shown to produce clustered formations, as well as lines and
V-like formations. The key factors which trigger the onset of different
patterns are argued to be the relative strength of attraction and repulsion
forces and, most important, the anisotropy in their application.Comment: 22 pages, 9 figures. Submitted. v1-v4: revised presentation; extended
simulations; included technical results. v5: added a few clarification
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