Field theory of active chiral hard disks: a first-principles approach to steric interactions

Abstract A first-principles approach for active chiral hard disks is presented, that explicitly accounts for steric interactions on the two-body level. We derive an effective one-body equation for the joint probability distribution of positions and angles of the particles. By projecting onto the angular modes, we write a hierarchy for the lowest hydrodynamic modes, i.e. particle density, polarisation, and nematic tensor. Introducing dimensionless variables in the equations, we highlight the assumptions, which—though inherent—are often included implicit in typical closure schemes of the hierarchy. By considering different regimes of the Péclet number, the well-known models in active matter can be obtained through our consideration. Explicitly, we derive an effective diffusive description and by going to higher orders in the closure scheme, we show that this first-principles approach results in the recently introduced Active Model B +, a natural extension of the Model B for active processes. Remarkably, here we find that chirality can change the sign of the phenomenological activity parameters.