Non-equilibrium self-assembly of colloidal particles in active liquids

Abstract

Self-assembly and clustering in Active Matter systems has been a topic of tremendous interest lately. Recent work has shown that the active nature of bacterial systems could also lead to the clustering of passive particles in an active bath (with other interesting properties such as rotation of clusters). In this project, we create a model to explain the dynamics of such a system, including the effects of hydrodynamics. We benchmark and verify the different components of the model and also verify the results displayed by the complete model. We show that our model is able to create passive particle clusters for certain parameters chosen. Our work hence provides a model which successfully simulates the clustering of passive particles in an active bath(with hydrodynamics) and hence, provides a framework to explain the dynamics involved in such a problem.