Abstract
Minimal models of self-propelled particles with short-range volume exclusion interactions have been shown to exhibit the signatures of phase separation. Here I show that the observed interfacial stability and fluctuations in motility-induced phase separations (MIPS) can be explained by modeling the microscopic dynamics of the active particles in the interfacial region. In addition, I demonstrate the validity of the Gibbs-Thomson relationship in MIPS, which provides a functional relationship between the size of a condensed drop and its surrounding vapor concentration. As a result, the late-stage coarsening dynamics of MIPS at vanishing supersaturation follows the classic Lifshitz-Slyozov scaling law.
Highlights
Phase separation is a ubiquitous phenomenon in nature and is manifested by the partitioning of a system into compartments with distinct properties, such as the different particle densities in the two co-existing phases in the case of liquid–vapour phase separation
To probe what happens at the interface, I have studied the microscopic dynamics of the active particles in the interfacial region using a combination of simulation and analytical methods
In this paper I have investigated the microscopic dynamics of active particles in the interfacial regions in motility-induced phase separations (MIPS) using a combination of simulations and analytical arguments, and demonstrated (i) how interface stability is achieved, (ii) why the GT relationship emerges in MIPS, and (iii) how interface fluctuations scale with the system size
Summary
Phase separation is a ubiquitous phenomenon in nature and is manifested by the partitioning of a system into compartments with distinct properties, such as the different particle densities in the two co-existing phases in the case of liquid–vapour phase separation. Phase separation under equilibrium dynamics is a well-investigated physical phenomenon.[1,2] Recently, signatures of phase separation have been reported in non-equilibrium systems consisting of active particles.[3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19] It is a natural question to ask to what degree we can extend our knowledge of equilibrium phase separation to the phase separation phenomenon observed in active systems. By incorporating the stochastic nature of particle dynamics, I will explain the scaling between the interfacial width and the system size recently observed in MIPS.[18]
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