Motility-induced phase separation
By: Alexandre Solon
From: Sorbonne U., Paris, France
At: Online - Zoom (https://videoconf-colibri.zoom.us/j/85947867444)
[2021-05-20]
Active matter, composed of self-propelling entities, is found across scales in nature, from cellular tissues to animal groups. Such systems, as well as engineered active materials, exhibit many types of collective behaviors and unusual mechanical properties.
I will discuss the simplest phase transition taking place in active systems: The motility-induced phase separation (MIPS), which is driven by the decrease in velocity of active particles due to steric interactions. Although it is a purely nonequilibrium phenomenon, as a first approximation, the phase equilibrium can be understood in the same way as for an equilibrium phase separation, albeit using effective thermodynamic functions. However, at large scale, these systems exhibit a radically different behavior termed "bubbly phase separation".
