Pattern formation and phase transition in the collective dynamics of a binary mixture of polar self-propelled particles.

Abstract

The collective behavior of a binary mixture of polar self-propelled particles (SPPs) with different motile properties is studied. The binary mixture consists of slow-moving SPPs (sSPPs) of fixed velocity v_{s} and fast-moving SPPs (fSPPs) of fixed velocity v_{f}. These SPPs interact via a short-range interaction irrespective of their types. They move following certain position and velocity update rules similar to the Vicsek model (VM) under the influence of an external noise η. The system is studied at different values of v_{f} keeping v_{s}=0.01 constant for a fixed density ρ=0.5. Different phase-separated collective patterns that appear in the system over a wide range of noise η are characterized. The fSPPs and the sSPPs are found to be orientationally phase synchronized at the steady state. We studied an orientational order-disorder transition varying the angular noise η and identified the critical noise η_{c} for different v_{f}. Interestingly, both the species exhibit continuous transition for v_{f}<100v_{s} and discontinuous transition for v_{f}>100v_{s}. A new set of critical exponents is determined for the continuous transitions. However, the binary model is found to be nonuniversal as the values of the critical exponents depend on the velocity. The effect of interaction radius on the system behavior is also studied.