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Main Authors: Leoni, Marco, Paoluzzi, Matteo, Dumaup, Christian Alistair, Movagharnemati, Farbod, Nguyen-Leon, Lauren, Nguyen, Tiffany, Eldeen, Sarah, Ahmed, Wylie W.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.02506
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author Leoni, Marco
Paoluzzi, Matteo
Dumaup, Christian Alistair
Movagharnemati, Farbod
Nguyen-Leon, Lauren
Nguyen, Tiffany
Eldeen, Sarah
Ahmed, Wylie W.
author_facet Leoni, Marco
Paoluzzi, Matteo
Dumaup, Christian Alistair
Movagharnemati, Farbod
Nguyen-Leon, Lauren
Nguyen, Tiffany
Eldeen, Sarah
Ahmed, Wylie W.
contents We study a few-body system composed of self-propelling camphor surfers confined within a circular boundary. These millimeter-sized particles move in a regime where inertia and long-ranged interactions play a significant role, leading to surprisingly complex and subtle collective dynamics. These dynamics include self-organized bursts and glassy behavior at intermediate densities--phenomena not apparent from ensemble-averaged steady-state measures. By analyzing quantities like the overlap order parameter, we observe that the system exhibits dynamical slowing down as particle density increases. This slowdown is also reflected in the bursting activity, where both the amplitude and frequency of bursts decrease with increasing particle density. A minimal inertial active-particle model reproduces these dynamical steady states, revealing the importance of a new intermediate length scale--larger than the particle size. This intermediate scale is critical for the formation of structures resembling caging and plays a key role in the glass-like transition. Our results describe a macroscopic analog of an active glass with the additional phenomena of density-dependent bursting.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2511_02506
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Macroscopic active matter under confinement: dynamical heterogeneity, bursts, and glassy behavior in a few-body system of self-propelling camphor surfers
Leoni, Marco
Paoluzzi, Matteo
Dumaup, Christian Alistair
Movagharnemati, Farbod
Nguyen-Leon, Lauren
Nguyen, Tiffany
Eldeen, Sarah
Ahmed, Wylie W.
Soft Condensed Matter
Statistical Mechanics
We study a few-body system composed of self-propelling camphor surfers confined within a circular boundary. These millimeter-sized particles move in a regime where inertia and long-ranged interactions play a significant role, leading to surprisingly complex and subtle collective dynamics. These dynamics include self-organized bursts and glassy behavior at intermediate densities--phenomena not apparent from ensemble-averaged steady-state measures. By analyzing quantities like the overlap order parameter, we observe that the system exhibits dynamical slowing down as particle density increases. This slowdown is also reflected in the bursting activity, where both the amplitude and frequency of bursts decrease with increasing particle density. A minimal inertial active-particle model reproduces these dynamical steady states, revealing the importance of a new intermediate length scale--larger than the particle size. This intermediate scale is critical for the formation of structures resembling caging and plays a key role in the glass-like transition. Our results describe a macroscopic analog of an active glass with the additional phenomena of density-dependent bursting.
title Macroscopic active matter under confinement: dynamical heterogeneity, bursts, and glassy behavior in a few-body system of self-propelling camphor surfers
topic Soft Condensed Matter
Statistical Mechanics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.02506