Berlin 2008 – scientific programme
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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik
BP 10: Self Propulsion
BP 10.3: Talk
Tuesday, February 26, 2008, 14:30–14:45, C 243
Orientational ordering and clustering in a simple model of self-propelled particles — Fernando Peruani1,2,3, Andreas Deutsch2, and •Markus Bär3 — 1MPIPKS Dresden — 2TU Dresden — 3PTB Berlin
We study the emergence of collective effects in a two-dimensional stochastic systems of self-propelled particles interacting locally through an apolar, liquid crystal-based alignment mechanism. In the model particles are driven at constant speed and align their direction of motion to the local director. We show through extensive simulations hat the behavior of the system at high and low densities is remarkably different. At high density orientational order emerges upon decrease of the noise strength. The phase transition appears to be of mean-field type. In contrast at low density, an instability leading to inhomogeneous particle density and clustering is found upon decrease of the noise strength. A comparison between active and diffusive particles reveals that diffusive particles can exhibit orientational order for high densities in a similar fashion as self-propelled particles, while clustering at low densities and related orientational order is absent low densities.