Metastable Clusters and Channels Formed by Active Particles with Aligning Interactions

Abstract

We introduce a novel model for active particles with short-range aligning interactions and study their behaviour in crowded environments using numerical simulations. When only active particles are present, we observe a transition from a gaseous state to the emergence of metastable clusters as the level of orientational noise is reduced. When also passive particle are present, we observe the emergence of a network of metastable channels.