From flocking to glassiness in dense disordered polar active matter

Abstract

Abstract Living materials such as biological tissues or bacterial colonies are collections of heterogeneous entities of different sizes, capable of autonomous motion, and often capable of cooperating. Such a degree of complexity brings to collective motion on large scales. However, how the competition between geometrical frustration, autonomous motion, and the tendency to move cooperatively impact large-scale behavior remains an open question. We implement those three ingredients in a model of active matter and show that the system, in forming migratory patterns, can arrange in bands or develop long-range order, depending on the density of the system. We also show that the active material undergoes a reentrant glass transition triggered by the alignment interaction that typically causes only collective migratory motion. Finally, we observe that polar order destroys active phase separation, producing homogeneous, disordered moving configurations.