1202.6264 (I. Theurkauff et al.)

Dynamic clustering in active colloidal suspensions with chemical
signaling    [PDF]

I. Theurkauff, C. Cottin-Bizonne, J. Palacci, C. Ybert, L. Bocquet

In this paper, we explore experimentally the phase behavior of a dense active suspension of self- propelled colloids. In addition to a solid-like and a gas-like phase observed for high and low densities, a novel cluster phase is reported at intermediate densities. This takes the form of a stationary assembly of dense aggregates, with an average size which grows with activity as a linear function of the self-propelling velocity. While different possible scenarii can be considered to account for these observations - such as a generic velocity weakening instability recently put forward -, we show that the experimental results are reproduced by a chemotactic aggregation mechanism, originally introduced to account for bacterial aggregation, and accounting here for diffusiophoretic chemical interaction between colloidal swimmers.

View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1202.6264