Active phase separation in mixtures of chemically interacting particles

Abstract

We theoretically study mixtures of chemically-interacting particles, which produce or consume a chemical to which they are attracted or repelled, in the most general case of many coexisting species. We find a new class of active phase separation phenomena in which the nonequilibrium chemical interactions between particles, which break action-reaction symmetry, can lead to separation into phases with distinct density and stoichiometry. Due to the generic nature of our minimal model, our results shed light on the underlying fundamental principles behind nonequilibrium self-organization of cells and bacteria, catalytic enzymes, or phoretic colloids.