Superdiffusion and Antidiffusion in an Aligned Active Suspension
We show theoretically that an imposed uniaxial anisotropy leads to new universality classes for the dynamics of active particles suspended in a viscous fluid. In the homogeneous state, their concentration relaxes superdiffusively, stirred by the long-ranged flows generated by its own fluctuations, as confirmed by our numerical simulations. Increasing activity leads to an anisotropic diffusive instability, and thus an original phase-separation mechanism, driven by the interplay of active stresses with a particle current proportional to the local curvature of the suspension velocity profile.
Authors
- Sriraṁ Ramaswamy (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7726-8556)
- Lokrshi Prawar Dadhichi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7883-131X)
- S. K. Sahoo (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3315-6573)
- K. Vijay Kumar
Institutions
- International Centre for Theoretical Sciences (IN)
- Indian Institute of Science Bangalore (IN)
- Leipzig University (DE)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Physical Review Letters
- Published
- 2026-03-05
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1103/d61l-1tyh
- Primary Topic
- Advanced Theoretical and Applied Studies in Material Sciences and Geometry
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00
Funders
- Arthritis National Research Foundation
- Indian Institute of Science
- Department of Atomic Energy, Government of India
- Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council
- Division of Mathematical Sciences