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Yuta Kuroda

Publications and source records attributed to Yuta Kuroda.

8 recordsLinked to original sources

Designing topological edge currents in chiral active matter

Achieving robust functionality in active matter driven away from thermal equilibrium is a current theoretical and experimental challenge. Several recent studies have reported edge currents--persistent transport along walls and density inhomogeneities--in chiral active matter. Yet, the microscopic rules that render these edge currents robust with respect to the confinement geometry and defects remain elusive. Here, we introduce a simple particle model of two-dimensional chiral active swimmers that undergo chirality switching and demonstrate that the model exhibits robust edge currents, i.e., when a single particle is confined, edge currents arise regardless of the confinement geometry or the presence of defects. We also investigate the collective behavior of interacting particles in bulk and find that chirality switching induces phase separation accompanied by edge currents along interfaces. This phase separation is distinct from motility-induced phase separation and is qualitatively explained by an effective hydrodynamic theory derived via bottom-up coarse-graining. Furthermore, by analyzing the topological properties of the linearized hydrodynamic equations, we show that the edge currents in our system are genuine topological edge modes. Notably, phase separation induced by chirality switching can be regarded as the coexistence of two topologically distinct domains. Our results provide guidelines for designing robust edge currents in active matter systems.

cond-mat.soft

Singular density correlations in chiral active fluids in three dimensions

We investigate density fluctuations in three-dimensional chiral active fluids by using a simple model of helical self-propelled particles. Helical motion is generated by a constant angular velocity (or chiral torque) acting on the self-propelled force. The chiral torque is assumed to have the same direction and magnitude for all particles. Due to the helical nature of the particle motion, the system is generically anisotropic even when it is spatially homogeneous. Numerical simulations demonstrate that the helicity induces an anisotropic pattern and a singularity in the static structure factor (the density correlation function in Fourier space) in the low-wavenumber limit. Moreover, the system in the limit of infinite persistence time exhibits hyperuniformity in the direction perpendicular to the chiral torque, while giant density fluctuations emerge along the parallel direction. We then construct a fluctuating hydrodynamic theory for the system to describe the singular behavior. A linear analysis of the resulting equations yields an analytical expression for the static structure factor, which qualitatively agrees with our numerical findings.

cond-mat.soft

Crystallization of Chiral Active Brownian Particles at Low Densities

Chiral active matter is a variant of active matter systems in which the motion of the constituent particles violates mirror symmetry. In this letter, we simulate two-dimensional chiral Active Brownian Particles, the simplest chiral model in which each particle undergoes circular motion, and show that the system crystallizes at low densities well below the melting point of the equilibrium counterpart. Crystallization is only possible if the orbital radius is long enough to align the circulating particles, but short enough for neighboring particles to avoid collisions. Of course, the system must be driven sufficiently far from equilibrium, since chirality cannot affect thermodynamic properties in classical equilibrium systems. The fluid-crystal phase diagram shows a re-entrant melting transition as a function of the radius of the circles. We show that at least one of the two transitions follows the same two-step melting scenario as in equilibrium systems.

cond-mat.soft

Effects of curvature on growing films of microorganisms

To provide insight into the basic properties of emerging structures when bacteria or other microorganisms conquer surfaces, it is crucial to analyze their growth behavior during the formation of thin films. In this regard, many theoretical studies focus on the behavior of elongating straight objects. They repel each other through volume exclusion and divide into two halves when reaching a certain threshold length. However, in reality, hardly any object of a certain elongation is perfectly straight. Therefore, we here study the consequences of the curvature of individuals on the growth of colonies and thin active films. This individual curvature, so far hardly considered, turns out to qualitatively affect the overall growth behavior of the colony. Particularly, strings of stacked curved cells emerge that show branched structures, while the size of orientationally ordered domains in the colony is significantly decreased. Furthermore, we identify emergent spatio-orientational coupling that is not observed in colonies of straight cells. Our results are important for a fundamental understanding of the interaction and spreading of microorganisms on surfaces, with implications for medical applications and bioengineering.

cond-mat.soft

Long-range translational order and hyperuniformity in two-dimensional chiral active crystal

We numerically study two-dimensional athermal chiral active particles at high densities. The particles in this system perform the circular motion with frequency $Ω$. We show that the system crystallizes at high densities even in two dimensions, accompanied by the true long-range translational order. This is due to the anomalous suppression of displacement fluctuations associated with hyperuniformity. These findings can be explained using an active elastic theory quantitatively. Surprisingly, the crystals become unstable and melt in the limit of $Ω=0$, for the spatial dimension of four or less. This result can be explained by a mechanism akin to quenched random systems for which the lower critical dimension is four.

cond-mat.soft

Continuous symmetry breaking of low-dimensional systems driven by inhomogeneous oscillatory driving forces

The driving forces of chiral active particles and deformations of cells are often modeled by spatially inhomogeneous but temporally periodic driving forces. Such inhomogeneous oscillatory driving forces have only recently been proposed in the context of active matter, and their effects on the systems are not yet fully understood. In this work, we theoretically study the impact of spatially inhomogeneous oscillatory driving forces on continuous symmetry breaking. We first analyze the linear model for the soft modes in the ordered phase to derive the lower critical dimension of the model, and then analyze the spherical model to investigate more detailed phase behaviors. Interestingly, our analysis reveals that symmetry breaking occurs even in one and two dimensions, where the Hohenberg--Mermin--Wagner theorem prohibits continuous symmetry breaking in equilibrium. Furthermore, fluctuations of conserved quantities, such as density, are anomalously suppressed in the long-wavelength, {\it i.e.}, show hyperuniformity.

cond-mat.stat-mech

Microscopic theory for hyperuniformity in two-dimensional chiral active fluid

Some nonequilibrium systems exhibit anomalous suppression of the large-scale density fluctuations, so-called hyperuniformity. Recently, hyperuniformity was found numerically in a simple model of chiral active fluids [Q.-L. Lei et al., Sci. Adv. 5, eaau7423 (2019)]. We revisit this phenomenon and put forward a microscopic theory to explain it. An effective fluctuating hydrodynamic equation is derived for a simple particle model of chiral active matter. We show that the linear analysis of the obtained hydrodynamic equation captures hyperuniformity. Our theory yields hyperuniformity characterized by the same exponents as the numerical observation, but the agreement with the numerical data is qualitative. We also argue that the hydrodynamic equation for the effective particle representation, in which each rotating trajectory is regarded as an effective particle, has the same form as the macroscopic description of the random organization model with the center of mass conservation.

cond-mat.soft

Anomalous fluctuations in homogeneous fluid phase of active Brownian particles

Giant number fluctuations (GNF) are an anomaly universally observed in active fluids with polar or nematic order. In this paper, we show that GNF arise in the fluid phase of active Brownian particles (ABP), where the polar order is absent. GNF in ABP extends over a large but finite length which characterizes the growing velocity correlations. To suppress unwanted phase separation and allow ones to explore the disordered fluid phase at large activities, we impart the inertia, or the mass, to the ABP. A linearized hydrodynamic theory captures our findings, but only qualitatively. We find numerically a nontrivial scaling relation for the density correlation function, which the linearized theory cannot explain. The results suggest ubiquitousness of the anomalous fluctuations even in the disordered homogeneous fluid phase in the absence of the directional order.

cond-mat.soft