Velocity condensation for magnetotactic bacteria

Abstract

Magnetotactic swimmers tend to align along magnetic field lines against stochastic reorientations. We show that the swimming strategy, e.g. active Brownian motion versus run-and-tumble dynamics, strongly affects the orientation statistics. The latter can exhibit a velocity condensation whereby the alignment probability density diverges. As a consequence, we find that the swimming strategy affects the nature of the phase transition to collective motion, indicating that L\'evy run-and-tumble walks can outperform active Brownian processes as strategies to trigger collective behavior.