In this work we investigate the collective behavior of self-propelled
particles that deform due to local pairwise interactions. We demonstrate that
this deformation alone can induce alignment of the velocity vectors. The onset
of collective motion is analyzed. Applying a Gaussian-core repulsion between
the particles, we find a transition to disordered non-collective motion under
compression. We here explain that this reflects the reentrant fluid behavior of
the general Gaussian-core model now applied to a self-propelled system.
Truncating the Gaussian potential can lead to cluster crystallization or more
disordered cluster states. For intermediate values of the Gaussian-core
potential we for the first time observe laning for deformable self-propelled
particles. Finally, without the core potential, but including orientational
noise, we connect our description to the Vicsek approach for self-propelled
particles with nematic alignment interactions.Comment: 6 pages, 7 figure
