Active crystals on a sphere

Abstract

Two-dimensional crystals on curved manifolds exhibit nontrivial defect structures. Here, we consider "active crystals" on a sphere, which are composed of self-propelled colloidal particles. Our work is based on a new phase-field-crystal-type model that involves a density and a polarization field on the sphere. Depending on the strength of the self-propulsion, three different types of crystals are found: a static crystal, a self-spinning "vortex-vortex" crystal containing two vortical poles of the local velocity, and a self-translating "source-sink" crystal with a source pole where crystallization occurs and a sink pole where the active crystal melts. These different crystalline states as well as their defects are studied theoretically here and can in principle be confirmed in experiments.