Arnold Sommerfeld Center for Theoretical Physics and Center for NanoSciences, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Theresienstraße 37, 80333, Munich, Germany.
Department of Biomedical Engineering, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, USA.
Nat Commun. 2022 Nov 7;13(1):6727. doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-34484-2.
The emergence of collective motion among interacting, self-propelled agents is a central paradigm in non-equilibrium physics. Examples of such active matter range from swimming bacteria and cytoskeletal motility assays to synthetic self-propelled colloids and swarming microrobots. Remarkably, the aggregation capabilities of many of these systems rely on a theme as fundamental as it is ubiquitous in nature: communication. Despite its eminent importance, the role of communication in the collective organization of active systems is not yet fully understood. Here we report on the multi-scale self-organization of interacting self-propelled agents that locally process information transmitted by chemical signals. We show that this communication capacity dramatically expands their ability to form complex structures, allowing them to self-organize through a series of collective dynamical states at multiple hierarchical levels. Our findings provide insights into the role of self-sustained signal processing for self-organization in biological systems and open routes to applications using chemically driven colloids or microrobots.
相互作用的自主运动个体的集体运动的出现是非平衡物理的一个核心范例。这种主动物质的例子包括游泳细菌和细胞骨架运动分析，以及合成的自主推进胶体和群集微机器人。值得注意的是，许多此类系统的聚集能力依赖于一个既基本又普遍存在于自然界中的主题：通信。尽管它非常重要，但通信在主动系统的集体组织中的作用还没有被完全理解。在这里，我们报告了相互作用的自主运动个体的多尺度自组织，这些个体局部处理由化学信号传输的信息。我们表明，这种通信能力极大地扩展了它们形成复杂结构的能力，使它们能够通过一系列多层次的集体动力学状态进行自组织。我们的研究结果为自我维持信号处理在生物系统中的自组织中的作用提供了新的见解，并为使用化学驱动胶体或微机器人的应用开辟了新的途径。
