Hydrodynamics of passive and active rods in a temperature gradient

Abstract

Temperature plays a very important role in various biological processes like the evolution of life, as it is anticipated that early life existed in a very hot environment that eventually cooled down with time. In vitro experiments, conducted with various active matter systems in anisotropic temperature environments, show several interesting outcomes. Motivated by these experiments and some simulation results, we study the collective behavior of self-propelled hard rods with excluded volume interactions, moving on a substrate in two dimensions and subjected to a small but finite external temperature gradient. Using a coarse-grained hydrodynamic approach, we explore the behavior of the system in the steady state and the stability both in the passive and active limits.