How boundary interactions dominate emergent driving of passive probes in active matter

Abstract

Colloidal probes immersed in an active bath have been found to behave like active particles themselves. Here, we use coarse-grained simulations to investigate the mechanisms behind this behavior. We find that the active motion of the colloid cannot be simply attributed to the convective motion in the bath. Instead, the boundary of the probe contributes significantly to these adopted dynamics by causing active bath particles to spontaneously accumulate at the probe. This gathering of active bath particles then pushes the probe, thus promoting its emergent active-particle-like behavior. Furthermore, we find that the dynamic properties of the probe depend on its size in a non-monotonic way, which further highlights the non-trivial interplay between probe and bath.