Criticality of the zero-temperature jamming transition probed by self-propelled particles.

Abstract

We perform simulations of athermal systems of self-propelled particles (SPPs) interacting via harmonic repulsion in the vicinity of the zero-temperature jamming transition at point J. Every particle is propelled by a constant force f pointing to a randomly assigned and fixed direction. When f is smaller than the yield force f_y, the system is statically jammed. We find that f_y increases with packing fraction and exhibits finite size scaling, implying the criticality of point J. When f > f_y, SPPs flow forever and their velocities satisfy the k-Gamma distribution. Velocity distributions at various packing fractions and f collapse when the particle velocity is scaled by the average velocity v[combining macron], suggesting that v[combining macron] is a reasonable quantity to characterize the response to f. We thus define a response function R(ϕ,f) = v[combining macron](ϕ,f)/f. The function exhibits critical scaling nicely, implying again the criticality of point J. Our analysis and results indicate that systems of SPPs behave analogically to sheared systems, although their driving mechanisms are apparently distinct.