Finite-size scaling in kinetics of phase separation in certain models of aligning active particles.

Abstract

To study the kinetics of phase separation in active matter systems, we consider models that impose a Vicsek-type self-propulsion rule on otherwise passive particles interacting via the Lennard-Jones potential. Two types of kinetics are of interest: one conserves the total momentum of all the constituents and the other does not. We carry out molecular dynamics simulations to obtain results on structural, growth, and aging properties. Results from our studies, with various finite boxes, show that there exist scalings with respect to the system sizes, in both the latter quantities, as in the standard passive cases. We have exploited this scaling picture to accurately estimate the corresponding exponents, in the thermodynamically large system size limit, for power-law time dependences. It is shown that certain analytical functions describe the behavior of these quantities quite accurately, including the finite-size limits. Our results demonstrate that even though the conservation of velocity has at best weak effects on the dynamics of evolution in the thermodynamic limit, the finite-size behavior is strongly influenced by the presence (or the absence) of it.