Self-Induced Polar Order of Active Brownian Particles in a Harmonic Trap

Hydrodynamically interacting active particles in an external harmonic potential form a self-assembled fluid pump at large enough Péclet numbers. Here, we give a quantitative criterion for the formation of the pump and show that particle orientations align in the self-induced flow field in surprising analogy to ferromagnetic order where the active Péclet number plays the role of inverse temperature. The particle orientations follow a Boltzmann distribution Φ(p) ∼ exp(Ap(z)) where the ordering mean field A scales with the active Péclet number and polar order parameter. The mean flow field in which the particles' swimming directions align corresponds to a regularized Stokeslet with strength proportional to swimming speed. Analytic mean-field results are compared with results from Brownian dynamics simulations with hydrodynamic interactions included and are found to capture the self-induced alignment very well.