Multi-scale patterns arising from competing chemotactic interactions

Abstract

Classical chemotaxis models consider the directed motion of cells in response to a chemical gradient. Recent experiments suggest that biological microswimmers such as bacteria can perform chemotaxis toward multiple chemicals, which dynamically evolve depending on the distribution of the microswimmers. In this Letter, we consider a mass-conserving chemotaxis model in which pattern formation is driven by two competing chemicals, autoinducers and nutrients, where the former acts as an activator and the latter as an inhibitor for coarsening. We show that this can give rise to diverse patterns including long wavelength uninterrupted coarsening, Turing-like arrested coarsening, traveling waves as well as a novel class of mixed multi-scale oscillatory coarsening patterns, where a dense aggregate coexist with a dynamically spreading part of the population. We analytically derive the conditions for the onset of such patterns and discuss their physical implications, which significantly broadens our understanding of signaling active matter and pattern formation in general.