A partial differential equation 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 behaviour in orientable Janus particles. This paper explores the group formation and cohesion of Janus particles using both an agent-based computer model and a non-local advection–diffusion partial differential equation (PDE) model. Our PDE model can recreate the behaviour from both physical experimentation and computer simulations. Additionally, the PDE model highlights an annular structure that was not apparent in prior work.