Martin Wood Complex, Department of Physics, University of Oxford, Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3PU
Ramin Golestanian (Max Planck & Oxford)
Building on the recent surge in developing generalized thermodynamic descriptions for scalar active matter, I propose a generic theoretical formulation that incorporates the notion of a diffusivity edge, which is a density threshold beyond which the effective density-dependent diffusivity of the system vanishes. The model can be solved exactly for the stationary-state behaviour of the system despite being highly singular. The exact solution shows a remarkable emergent feature in the system; a dynamical phase transition that is formally equivalent to Bose-Einstein condensation, despite the system being intrinsically classical. The relevant generalized thermodynamic properties of the system are characterized, and it is demonstrated how signatures of such behaviour can be observed in experiments.