Soft deformable self-propelled particles

Abstract

In this work we investigate the collective behavior of self-propelled particles that deform due to local pairwise interactions. We demonstrate that this deformation alone can induce alignment of the velocity vectors. The onset of collective motion is analyzed. Applying a Gaussian-core repulsion between the particles, we find a transition to disordered non-collective motion under compression. We here explain that this reflects the reentrant fluid behavior of the general Gaussian-core model now applied to a self-propelled system. Truncating the Gaussian potential can lead to cluster crystallization or more disordered cluster states. For intermediate values of the Gaussian-core potential we observe for the first time laning for deformable self-propelled particles. Finally, without the core potential, but including orientational noise, we connect our description to the Vicsek approach for self-propelled particles with nematic alignment interactions.