Title: Diversity of phase transitions and phase separations in active fluids

Speaker: Chiu Fan Lee (Imperial College London, UK)

Abstract:

Active matter is not only indispensable to our understanding of diverse biological processes, but also provides a fertile ground for discovering novel physics. Many emergent properties impossible for equilibrium systems have been demonstrated in active systems. These emergent features include motility-induced phase separation, long-ranged ordered (collective motion) phase in two dimensions, and order-disorder phase co-existences (banding and reverse-banding regimes). In this talk, I will discuss how these diverse phase transitions and phase co-existences can be unified into a single formulation based on the generic hydrodynamic (Toner-Tu) equations that describe active fluids. I will also present a novel phase co-existence and two putatively novel critical points uncovered through this formulation.

References:

[1] T. Bertrand and C.F. Lee. Diversity of phase transitions and phase co-existences in active fluids. E-print: arXiv:2012.05866.

[2] D. Nesbitt, G. Pruessner and C.F. Lee (2021) Uncovering novel phase transitions in dense dry polar active fluids using a lattice Boltzmann method. New Journal of Physics 23 043047.

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