Shape anisotropy governs organization of active rods: Swarming, turbulence, flocking, and jamming

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Shelke, Yogesh, S, Anpuj Nair, Vutukuri, Hanumantha Rao
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2026
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author Shelke, Yogesh
S, Anpuj Nair
Vutukuri, Hanumantha Rao
author_facet Shelke, Yogesh
S, Anpuj Nair
Vutukuri, Hanumantha Rao
contents Shape anisotropy of individual building blocks plays a crucial role in creating exotic structures and controlling phase behavior in equilibrium systems. We present a combined experimental and simulation study in which we used light-driven self-propelled rods to investigate when and how shape-induced alignment and steric and hydrodynamic interactions govern self-organization. Varying rod aspect ratio and area fraction causes the system to evolve from active Brownian motion to swarming, active turbulence, flocking, large clusters, and jamming. A state diagram summarizes emergent behaviors, and spatiotemporal analyses reveal distinct giant-number fluctuations across states. This minimal model offers insight into the self-organization of biological rodlike microswimmers, enabling the decoupling of physical from biological mechanisms. Our results provide design rules for programmable synthetic active materials and highlight parallels with bacterial swarms and other biological assemblies.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_02590
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Shape anisotropy governs organization of active rods: Swarming, turbulence, flocking, and jamming
Shelke, Yogesh
S, Anpuj Nair
Vutukuri, Hanumantha Rao
Soft Condensed Matter
Biological Physics
Shape anisotropy of individual building blocks plays a crucial role in creating exotic structures and controlling phase behavior in equilibrium systems. We present a combined experimental and simulation study in which we used light-driven self-propelled rods to investigate when and how shape-induced alignment and steric and hydrodynamic interactions govern self-organization. Varying rod aspect ratio and area fraction causes the system to evolve from active Brownian motion to swarming, active turbulence, flocking, large clusters, and jamming. A state diagram summarizes emergent behaviors, and spatiotemporal analyses reveal distinct giant-number fluctuations across states. This minimal model offers insight into the self-organization of biological rodlike microswimmers, enabling the decoupling of physical from biological mechanisms. Our results provide design rules for programmable synthetic active materials and highlight parallels with bacterial swarms and other biological assemblies.
title Shape anisotropy governs organization of active rods: Swarming, turbulence, flocking, and jamming
topic Soft Condensed Matter
Biological Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.02590