Crystallization of Chiral Active Brownian Particles at Low Densities

Abstract: Chiral active matter is a variant of active matter systems in which the motion of the constituent particles violates mirror symmetry. In this letter, we simulate two-dimensional chiral Active Brownian Particles, the simplest chiral model in which each particle undergoes circular motion, and show that the system crystallizes at low densities well below the melting point of the equilibrium counterpart. Crystallization is only possible if the orbital radius is long enough to align the circulating particles, but short enough for neighboring particles to avoid collisions. Of course, the system must be driven sufficiently far from equilibrium, since chirality cannot affect thermodynamic properties in classical equilibrium systems. The fluid-crystal phase diagram shows a re-entrant melting transition as a function of the radius of the circles. We show that at least one of the two transitions follows the same two-step melting scenario as in equilibrium systems.