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Determination of the Spontaneous Locomotor Activity in Drosophila melanogaster

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Spontaneous rotation can stabilise ordered chiral active fluids.

Ananyo Maitra¹, Martin Lenz^2,3

¹LPTMS, CNRS, Univ. Paris-Sud, Université Paris-Saclay, 91405, Orsay, France. nyomaitra07@gmail.com.

Nature Communications

|February 24, 2019

Summary

Chirality dramatically stabilizes active matter systems. Rotating chiral particles form stable ordered phases, unlike non-rotating ones, suppressing chaotic flows in active fluids.

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Area of Science:

Physics
Soft Matter Physics
Active Matter Dynamics

Background:

Active hydrodynamic theories explain emergent phases in self-driven particle systems like flocks and bacterial suspensions.
Existing theories well-established for orientationally ordered phases, but the impact of chirality remains less explored.
Chirality, a property of asymmetry, is crucial in many biological and artificial active systems.

Purpose of the Study:

To develop a comprehensive dynamical theory for orientationally ordered chiral particles in 2D incompressible systems.
To investigate the stability of ordered phases in the presence of particle chirality and intrinsic rotation.
To understand how chirality influences defect dynamics and fluid behavior in active systems.

Main Methods:

Formulation of a complete dynamical theory for chiral active particles.
Analysis of phase-coherent states in both momentum-conserved and non-conserved systems.
Investigation of defect separation mechanisms and their suppression by chirality.

Main Results:

Phase-coherent states of rotating chiral particles exhibit remarkable stability, outperforming non-rotating counterparts.
Intrinsic rotation of chiral active particles effectively suppresses defect separation.
This suppression prevents the chaotic flows typically observed in non-rotating active fluids.

Conclusions:

Chirality acts as a significant stabilizing factor in active matter systems.
The findings provide a theoretical framework for understanding collective behaviors in chiral active systems.
This work has implications for biological tissues, cytoskeletal dynamics, and bacterial collective motion.