Banded phases in topological flocks

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Packard, Charles R., Sussman, Daniel M.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Packard, Charles R.
Sussman, Daniel M.
author_facet Packard, Charles R.
Sussman, Daniel M.
contents Flocking phase transitions found in models of polar active matter are paradigmatic examples of active phase transitions in soft matter. An interesting specialization of flocking models concerns a ``topological'' vs ``metric'' choice by which agents are considered to be interacting neighbors. While recent theoretical work suggests that the order-disorder transition in these polar aligning models is universally first order, numerical studies have suggested that topological models may instead have a continuous transition. Some recent simulations have found that some variations of topologically interacting flocking agents have a discontinuous transition, but unambiguous observations of phase coexistence using common Voronoi-based alignment remains elusive. In this work, we use a custom GPU-accelerated simulation package to perform million-particle-scale simulations of these Voronoi-Vicsek flocking models. By accessing such large systems on appropriately long time scales, we are able to show that a regime of stable phase coexistence between the ordered and disordered phases, confirming the discontinuous nature of this transition in the thermodynamic limit.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2409_05198
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Banded phases in topological flocks
Packard, Charles R.
Sussman, Daniel M.
Soft Condensed Matter
Flocking phase transitions found in models of polar active matter are paradigmatic examples of active phase transitions in soft matter. An interesting specialization of flocking models concerns a ``topological'' vs ``metric'' choice by which agents are considered to be interacting neighbors. While recent theoretical work suggests that the order-disorder transition in these polar aligning models is universally first order, numerical studies have suggested that topological models may instead have a continuous transition. Some recent simulations have found that some variations of topologically interacting flocking agents have a discontinuous transition, but unambiguous observations of phase coexistence using common Voronoi-based alignment remains elusive. In this work, we use a custom GPU-accelerated simulation package to perform million-particle-scale simulations of these Voronoi-Vicsek flocking models. By accessing such large systems on appropriately long time scales, we are able to show that a regime of stable phase coexistence between the ordered and disordered phases, confirming the discontinuous nature of this transition in the thermodynamic limit.
title Banded phases in topological flocks
topic Soft Condensed Matter
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2409.05198