Reentrant phase separation of a sparse collection of nonreciprocally aligning self-propelled disks.

Abstract

We study a model of aligning self-propelled disks that nonreciprocally reorient the self-propulsion directions along the interparticle separation and towards the other disks. In the limit of small inertia and large softness, where conventional motility-induced phase separation is absent, we demonstrate that the homogeneous system at a small area fraction phase-separates into clusters and a low-density phase that, eventually, reenters the homogeneous phase with a monotonic increase in alignment strength. The disks inside the clusters move with a finite space-dependent speed, constantly shuttling between clusters through the surrounding low-density homogeneous phase while maintaining the hexatic structure properties within the clusters. The area fraction gradually increases from the periphery towards the center of the clusters with a negligible correlation of the velocity and propulsion direction inside the clusters. The novel collective behavior of reentrant phase separation is found to follow from both the limits of hard disks and extremely small inertia, tending towards the overdamped limit. However, important differences in the structural and dynamical properties are shown in the limit of hard disks and extremely small inertia, as compared to that for soft disks at finite inertia. We show that the cluster phase is associated with an effective temperature for a wide range of values of alignment strength, whereas an effective temperature is associated with the specific range of alignment in the low-density phase. We believe that the reentrant phase behavior in the limit of small area fraction and the remarkable properties of the clusters should be useful in understanding a wide range of physics issues, ranging from clogging and unclogging to information exchange and transport, in biological and synthetic self-propelled systems.