Pattern selection and the route to turbulence in incompressible polar active fluids

Abstract

Active fluids, such as suspensions of microswimmers, are well known to self-organize into complex spatio-temporal flow patterns. An intriguing example is mesoscale turbulence, a state of dynamic vortex structures exhibiting a characteristic length scale. Here, we employ a minimal model for the effective microswimmer velocity field to explore how the turbulent state develops from regular, stationary vortex patterns when the strength of activity resp. related parameters such as nonlinear advection or polar alignment strength—is increased. First, we demonstrate analytically that the system, without any spatial constraints, develops a stationary square vortex lattice in the absence of nonlinear advection. Subsequently, we perform an extended stability analysis of this nonuniform ‘ground state’ and uncover a linear instability, which follows from the mutual excitement and simultaneous growth of multiple perturbative modes. This extended analysis is based on linearization around an approximation of the analytical vortex lattice solution and allows us to calculate a critical advection or alignment strength, above which the square vortex lattice becomes unstable. Above these critical values, the vortex lattice develops into mesoscale turbulence in numerical simulations. Utilizing the numerical approach, we uncover an extended region of hysteresis where both patterns are possible depending on the initial condition. Here, we find that turbulence persists below the instability of the vortex lattice. We further determine the stability of square vortex patterns as a function of their wavenumber and represent the results analogous to the well-known Busse balloons known from classical pattern-forming systems such as Rayleigh–Bénard convection experiments and corresponding models such as the Swift–Hohenberg equation. Here, the region of stable periodic patterns shrinks and eventually disappears with increasing activity parameters. Our results show that the strength of activity plays a similar role for active turbulence as the Reynolds number does in driven flow exhibiting inertial turbulence.