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Emerging morphologies and effective interactions in active matter

 
 

Speaker: Ignacio Pagonabarraga (Universitat de Barcelona)
Date: 09/01/2025 
Time: 10:00 CEST
Host: Alejandro Torres-Sanchez (EMBL Barcelona)

Active matter systems are intrinsically out of equilibrium in the absence of any external driving. Their collective behavior emerges from a balance between direct interactions and indirect couplings through the medium they move in, and a self-consistent dynamical approach is required to analyze their evolution. The mechanical balance that determines their collective behavior makes these systems very versatile. An understanding on the basic principles underlying the emergence and self-assembly on active systems poses fundamental challenges. I will consider simple models to address the fundamental properties of active systems, which require a consistent dynamic treatment, and will discuss the generic implications that self-propulsion has in the emergence of structures in suspensions of model self-propelled particles. I will discuss the interactions between passive inclusions in an active suspension, where passive particles couple to the active suspension and quickly react to the active particles’ rearrangements. Hence, their relative dynamics plays an important role in the features that characterize the emergent interactions among the inclusions. Moreover, for systems where active particles develop long range polar order, the presence of passive obstacles triggers spontaneous macroscopic structures that give rise to non-reciprocal interactions. I will also discuss the susceptibility of polar active systems to small inclusions and the implications this has on the nature of their ordered phases.

If you would like to attend the seminar, please register here.