Understanding the collective behavior of microswimmers within microscopic statistical theory.

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To theoretically understand the collective behavior in many-body microswimmer suspensions, statistical approaches are mandatory. We have recently derived one such description including all basic ingredients, i.e. self-propulsion, hydrodynamic and steric interactions, as well as interactions with an external potential, in the form of a dynamical density functional theory. A first comparison with previous agent-based computer simulations has confirmed its validity. Variants and extensions of the theory shall now be derived and applied to describe different systems and phenomena: elongated microswimmers and their collective orientational properties; circle swimmers and gravitactic behavior; kinetic phase separation driven by self-propulsion; mixtures of active and passive swimmers; as well as the influence of imposed flow fields. Comparison with agent-based computer simulations and experiments performed by other groups in the project shall further improve the approach so that it can finally describe real experimental situations.