Chemotactic self-caging in active emulsions.

ABSTRACT: A common feature of biological self-organization is how active agents communicate with each other or their environment via chemical signaling. Such communications, mediated by self-generated chemical gradients, have consequences for both individual motility strategies and collective migration patterns. Here, in a purely physicochemical system, we use self-propelling droplets as a model for chemically active particles that modify their environment by leaving chemical footprints, which act as chemorepulsive signals to other droplets. We analyze this communication mechanism quantitatively both on the scale of individual agent-trail collisions as well as on the collective scale where droplets actively remodel their environment while adapting their dynamics to that evolving chemical landscape.

SUBMITTER: Hokmabad BV 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9214524 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature