A PDE Model for Janus Particle Swarming

Abstract

It has been experimentally shown that Brownian motion and active forward drift controlled by quorum sensing is sufficient to produce clustering behavior in orientable Janus particles. This paper explores the group formation and cohesion of Janus particles using both an agent-based computer model and a nonlocal advection-diffusion partial differential equation (PDE) model. Our PDE model can recreate the behavior from both physical experimentation and computer simulations. Additionally, the PDE model highlights an annular structure which was not apparent in prior work.