Motility-induced phase separation and frustration in active matter swarmalators

Abstract

We introduce a two dimensional system of active matter swarmalators composed of elastically interacting run-and-tumble active disks with an internal parameter ${\ensuremath{\phi}}_{i}$. The disks experience an additional attractive or repulsive force with neighboring disks depending upon their relative difference in ${\ensuremath{\phi}}_{i}$, making them similar to swarmalators used in robotic systems. In the absence of the internal parameter, the system forms a motility-induced phase separated (MIPS) state, but when the swarmalator interactions are present, a wide variety of other active phases appear depending upon whether the interaction is attractive or repulsive and whether the particles act to synchronize or ant-synchronize their internal parameter values. These phases include a gas-free gel regime, arrested clusters, a labyrinthine state, a regular MIPS state, a frustrated MIPS state for attractive antisynchronization, and a superlattice MIPS state for attractive synchronization.