From flocking to glassiness in dense disordered polar Active Matter

Abstract: Living materials such as biological tissues or bacterial colonies are collections of heterogeneous entities of different sizes, capable of autonomous motion, and often capable of cooperating. Such a degree of complexity brings to collective motion on large scales. However, how the competition between geometrical frustration, autonomous motion, and the tendency to move cooperatively impact large-scale behavior remains an open question. We implement those three ingredients in a model of active matter and show that the system, in forming migratory patterns, can arrange in bands or develop long-range order, depending on the density of the system. We also show that the active material undergoes a reentrant glass transition triggered by the alignment interaction that typically causes only collective migratory motion. Finally, we observe that polar order destroys active phase separation, producing homogeneous, disordered moving configurations.