Spatiotemporal order and emergent edge currents in active spinner materials

Area of Science:

• Physics
• Soft Matter Physics
• Statistical Mechanics

Background:

• Interacting, self-propelled particles are common models for living and synthetic systems.
• Active rotations in particles without self-propulsion are less explored.

Purpose of the Study:

• Investigate the behavior of self-spinning dimers.
• Explore emergent phenomena like spatiotemporal order and active melting.

Main Methods:

• Numerical simulations of spinning dimers.
• Theoretical analysis of particle interactions and rotations.

Main Results:

• Spinning dimers self-assemble into a triangular lattice with phase-locked orientations.
• Observed dynamic analogs of spin models (Potts antiferromagnet, planar quadrupoles).
• Discovered active melting, emergent edge currents, and kinetic arrest at high densities.

Conclusions:

• Geometric frustration in active rotations drives novel spatiotemporal order.
• Active spinning particles exhibit unique nonequilibrium phenomena absent in equilibrium systems.
• Findings applicable to liquid crystals, colloids, and macroscopic chiral grains.