Static and dynamic density correlations of interacting active Brownian particles

Abstract

We develop a stochastic Dean--Kawasaki field theory to predict the static structure factor and collective intermediate scattering function of interacting active Brownian particles. Starting from the microscopic overdamped dynamics, we derive coupled stochastic equations for the density and polarization fields using an angular-moment closure. Gaussian linearization then yields closed analytical expressions for static and dynamic density correlations in terms of propulsion speed, mean number density, interaction potential, translational and rotational diffusivities. The coupling between density and polarization predicts a crossover from exponential relaxation to damped oscillations despite the absence of inertia. For Gaussian-core potential, the predictions contain no fitting parameters. Brownian dynamics simulations show quantitative agreement at low activity and long wavelengths, and reproduce the crossover behaviour. For Weeks--Chandler--Andersen potential, the nonintegrable core makes both the Fourier transform of the potential and the self-interaction correction term in the Dean--Kawasaki field theory ill-defined. We therefore introduce an approximation that replaces the interaction potential with a passive direct-correlation function fitted separately at each density and temperature. This approximation requires no additional activity-dependent fitting parameters.