Particle-based model of active skyrmions

Abstract

Motivated by recent experimental results that reveal rich collective dynamics of thousands-to-millions of active liquid crystal skyrmions we have developed a coarse grained particle-based model of the dynamics of skyrmions in dilute regime. The basic physical mechanism of the skyrmion motion is related to the non-reciprocal rotational dynamics of the liquid crystal director field when the electric field is turned {\it on} and {\it off}. Guided by fine grained results of the Frank-Oseen continuum approach, we have mapped this non-reciprocal director distortions onto an effective force acting asymmetrically upon switching the electrical field {\it on} or {\it off}. The coarse grained model correctly reproduces the skyrmion dynamics, including the velocity reversal as a function of the frequency of a pulse width modulated driving voltage. We have also obtained approximate analytical expressions for the phenomenological model parameters encoding their dependence upon the cholesteric pitch and the strength of the electric field. This has been achieved by fitting coarse grained skyrmion trajectories to those determined in the framework of the Frank-Oseen model.