Ideal bulk pressure of active Brownian particles

2016

The extent to which active matter might be described by effective equilibrium concepts like temperature and pressure is currently being discussed intensely. Here, we study the simplest model, an ideal gas of noninteracting active Brownian particles. While the mechanical pressure exerted onto confining walls has been linked to correlations between particles' positions and their orientations, we show that these correlations are entirely controlled by boundary effects. We also consider a definition of local pressure, which describes interparticle forces in terms of momentum exchange between different regions of the system. We present three pieces of analytical evidence which indicate that such…