Active spinners drive passive matter into chiral rotors
Abstract
Active spinners inject angular momentum into their surroundings without persistent translation, providing a route to chiral active matter distinct from self-propelled particles moving along curved trajectories. Recent studies have shown that spinner fluids can self-organize into rotating clusters with circulating edge currents characteristic of odd-viscous fluids. Whether angular-momentum injection alone can transmit chirality and edge-current dynamics to ordinary passive matter - and thus serve as a generic mechanism for imparting chiral functionality to undriven material components - remains an open question. Here, we show experimentally and numerically that purely rotational magnetic spinners can transfer chirality and edge-current dynamics to passive colloidal matter. At high passive-particle fraction, active spinners assemble into rotating clusters surrounded by passive matter. Remarkably, upon changing composition and spinner attraction, this organization turns inside out: passive colloids form rotating clusters surrounded by a chiral spinner fluid. These passive rotors exhibit edge currents and the same angular-velocity scaling, |Ω|∼ R−2, as their active counterparts. A minimal model shows that spinner-mediated transverse and non-reciprocal interactions are sufficient to reproduce these complementary chiral states and their boundary-driven dynamics. Our results establish angular-momentum injection by active spinners as a route to endow otherwise passive matter with chirality, collective rotation and boundary transport.
Related
- Edge currents shape condensates in chiral active matter
- Persistence-driven void formation in dense active-passive mixtures
- Density Accelerated Relaxation in Active Passive Colloidal Networks with Competing Interactions
- Speed up of passive tracers in mixtures with active chemical reactions
- Aggressive Phase Separation in Dense Mixtures of Passive and Active Particles
BibTeX
@misc{schorn2026active,
title = {{Active spinners drive passive matter into chiral rotors}},
author = {Dennis Schorn and Anpuj Nair S and Stijn van der Ham and Benno Liebchen and Hanumantha Rao Vutukuri},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.39439},
eprint = {2609.39439},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.39439},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Active spinners drive passive matter into chiral rotors
AU - Dennis Schorn
AU - Anpuj Nair S
AU - Stijn van der Ham
AU - Benno Liebchen
AU - Hanumantha Rao Vutukuri
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/30
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.39439
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.39439
AB - Active spinners inject angular momentum into their surroundings without persistent translation, providing a route to chiral active matter distinct from self-propelled particles moving along curved trajectories. Recent studies have shown that spinner fluids can self-organize into rotating clusters with circulating edge currents characteristic of odd-viscous fluids. Whether angular-momentum injection alone can transmit chirality and edge-current dynamics to ordinary passive matter - and thus serve as a generic mechanism for imparting chiral functionality to undriven material components - remains an open question. Here, we show experimentally and numerically that purely rotational magnetic spinners can transfer chirality and edge-current dynamics to passive colloidal matter. At high passive-particle fraction, active spinners assemble into rotating clusters surrounded by passive matter. Remarkably, upon changing composition and spinner attraction, this organization turns inside out: passive colloids form rotating clusters surrounded by a chiral spinner fluid. These passive rotors exhibit edge currents and the same angular-velocity scaling, |Ω|∼ R^−2, as their active counterparts. A minimal model shows that spinner-mediated transverse and non-reciprocal interactions are sufficient to reproduce these complementary chiral states and their boundary-driven dynamics. Our results establish angular-momentum injection by active spinners as a route to endow otherwise passive matter with chirality, collective rotation and boundary transport.
ER -