Universality for moving stripes: a hydrodynamic theory of polar active smectics

We present a theory of moving stripes ("polar active smectics"), both with and without number conservation. The latter is described by a compact anisotropic Kardar-Parisi-Zhang equation, which implies smectic order is quasilong ranged in d=2 and long ranged in d=3. In d=2 the smectic disor...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Physical review letters 2013-08, Vol.111 (8), p.088701-088701
Main Authors: Chen, Leiming, Toner, John
Format: Article
Language:English
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:We present a theory of moving stripes ("polar active smectics"), both with and without number conservation. The latter is described by a compact anisotropic Kardar-Parisi-Zhang equation, which implies smectic order is quasilong ranged in d=2 and long ranged in d=3. In d=2 the smectic disorders via a Kosterlitz-Thouless transition, which can be driven by either increasing the noise or varying certain nonlinearities. For the number-conserving case, giant number fluctuations are greatly suppressed by the smectic order, which is long ranged in d=3. Nonlinear effects become important in d=2.
ISSN:1079-7114
DOI:10.1103/PhysRevLett.111.088701