Active-matter isomorphs in the size-polydisperse Ornstein–Uhlenbeck Lennard–Jones model

Abstract

This paper studies size-polydisperse Lennard–Jones systems described by active Ornstein–Uhlenbeck particle (AOUP) dynamics. The focus is on the existence of isomorphs (curves of invariant structure and dynamics) in the model’s three-dimensional phase diagram. Isomorphs are traced out from a single steady-state configuration by means of the configurational-temperature method. Good isomorph invariance of the reduced-unit radial distribution function and the mean-square displacement as a function of time is demonstrated for three uniform-distribution polydispersities, , 23%, and 29%. Comparing to active-matter isomorphs generated by the analytical direct-isomorph-check method, the latter have poorer invariance of the structure, but better invariance of the dynamics. We conclude that both methods can be used to quickly get an overview of the phase diagram of polydisperse AOUP models involving a potential-energy function obeying the hidden-scale-invariance property required for isomorph theory to apply.