Edge currents shape condensates in chiral active matter
5 affiliations
- 1Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems
- 2Center for Systems Biology Dresden
- 3SUPA
- 4University of Edinburgh
- 5TU Dresden
Abstract
Chiral active matter, which breaks both parity symmetry and time-reversal symmetry, is ubiquitous in living systems. Here, we introduce a minimal two-dimensional chiral active lattice gas by incorporating stochastic, biased local rotations. At low temperatures, the system coarsens into condensates with chiral orientations and faceted, crystallike shapes. The interfaces align at characteristic angles with respect to the lattice axes and exhibit edge currents that are persistent, unidirectional, and angle dependent. To generalize these findings, we propose a continuum theory by adding an active chiral edge current term to Model B, which reveals the essential role of active chiral transport in the interfacial dynamics of phase separation. Edge currents with n -fold symmetry produce condensates whose shapes resemble regular n -sided polygons. In the thin-interface limit, we construct an effective interface potential governing edge currents, from which the steady-state condensate geometry can be obtained, both in the lattice model and the continuum description.
Versions
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BibTeX
@article{wang2026edge,
title = {{Edge currents shape condensates in chiral active matter}},
author = {Boyi Wang and Patrick Pietzonka and Frank Jülicher},
journal = {Physical Review Research},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.1103/l3c8-3pbp},
url = {http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/l3c8-3pbp},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Edge currents shape condensates in chiral active matter
AU - Boyi Wang
AU - Patrick Pietzonka
AU - Frank Jülicher
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/26
JO - Physical Review Research
DO - 10.1103/l3c8-3pbp
UR - http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/l3c8-3pbp
AB - Chiral active matter, which breaks both parity symmetry and time-reversal symmetry, is ubiquitous in living systems. Here, we introduce a minimal two-dimensional chiral active lattice gas by incorporating stochastic, biased local rotations. At low temperatures, the system coarsens into condensates with chiral orientations and faceted, crystallike shapes. The interfaces align at characteristic angles with respect to the lattice axes and exhibit edge currents that are persistent, unidirectional, and angle dependent. To generalize these findings, we propose a continuum theory by adding an active chiral edge current term to Model B, which reveals the essential role of active chiral transport in the interfacial dynamics of phase separation. Edge currents with n -fold symmetry produce condensates whose shapes resemble regular n -sided polygons. In the thin-interface limit, we construct an effective interface potential governing edge currents, from which the steady-state condensate geometry can be obtained, both in the lattice model and the continuum description.
SN - 2643-1564
ER -