Flocking transition in phoretically interacting active particles with pinning disorder

Abstract Recent studies in the collective behavior of active colloids have shown that a global polar order may emerge due to long-ranged chemo-repulsive interactions between them. Here, we report the role of pinning disorder in the flocking transition for such a system. To this end, we study the problem of chemically interacting active colloids with some fraction of the colloids randomly pinned over space such that they can only rotate while phoretically interacting with other particles. Using this model, we investigate the sustenance of global polar order in the presence of quenched spatial disorder. We quantify the flocking transition by studying the global polarization, and the role of finite-size effects. We find that in the crystallite flocking phase, even a small fraction of pinning can destroy spatial crystalline order, although polar order in the form of a liquid phase is maintained. It is observed that polar order is sustained in a system with a higher pinning fraction if the long-ranged repulsive force is subsequently increased. However, in absence of chemo-repulsive forces between particles, polar order drastically decreases even with a smaller pinning fraction. Our work suggests that the flocking transition of active colloids can be controlled via ‘translationally inert’ obstacles, that rotate but do not translate whilst interacting with the bulk.