Emerging activity in bilayered dispersions with wake-mediated interactions

Abstract

In a bilayered system of particles with wake-mediated interactions, the action-reaction symmetry for the effective forces between particles of different layers is broken. Under quite general conditions we show that, if the interaction nonreciprocity exceeds a certain threshold, this creates an active dispersion of self-propelled clusters of Brownian particles. The emerging activity promotes unusual melting scenarios and an enormous diffusivity in the dense fluid. Our results are obtained by computer simulation and analytical theory, and can be verified in experiments with colloidal dispersions and complex plasmas.