Spiral, target, stripe, and disordered waves in active six-state Potts models

Wave propagation can be observed in various nonequilibrium systems. In this study, we investigated the properties of several wave modes in active six-state Potts models using Monte Carlo simulations of square and hexagonal lattices. Disordered and spiral (SP) waves of six states are formed under weak and strong repulsions at nonflip contacts, respectively. The target (TG) and stripe (ST) waves were found to emerge under stronger repulsion. These three wave modes (SP, TG, and ST) can temporally coexist in small systems near the transition points, but they do not switch in large systems or far from these transition points. During coarsening from randomly mixed states to ST waves, SP waves appear at an intermediate stage. The SP wave modes of three even- or odd-numbered states (states s = 0, 2, 4 or s = 1, 3, 5) emerge under two conditions: repulsion at the diagonal contact and attraction at nonflip contacts. Previously thought to be identical for both conditions, the wave types were found to differ, comprising forward and backward waves (s = 1 → 3 → 5 → 1 or s = 1 → 5 → 3 → 1), whose domain boundaries move by the two-step and four-step forward flips, respectively. The transition between the waves of the even- and odd-numbered states is first-order for both the forward and backward waves.