Emergence of lanes and turbulent-like motion in active spinner fluid

Abstract

Emergent collective behaviour has recently been addressed in systems of self-rotating particles, where motion, in particular, is an emergent phenomenon rather than a basic ingredient. Here, the authors derive a continuum model for mixtures of clockwise and counterclockwise Quincke spinners, demonstrating the emergence of same-spin phase separation, traffic lanes, sustained turbulent-like motion, and a chirality breaking transition depending on the fluid inertia of the system.