Interplay between jamming and motility-induced phase separation in persistent self-propelling particles.

Abstract

In living and engineered systems of active particles, self-propulsion induces an unjamming transition from a solid to a fluid phase and phase separation between a gas and a liquidlike phase. We demonstrate an interplay between these two nonequilibrium transitions in systems of persistent active particles. The coexistence and jamming lines in the activity-density plane meet at the jamming transition point in the limit of hard particles or zero activity. This interplay induces an anomalous dynamic in the liquid phase and hysteresis at the active jamming transition.