polar active matter

Flocks and crowds: a Gulliver travel

In the first part of my talk, combining experimental, numerical and theoretical results, I will explain how self-propelled colloidal particles self-organize in one of the most robust ordered state found in nature: flocks. I will explain how to describe macroscopic flocking motion as the spontaneous flows of an active fluid, and use this framework to elucidate the phase ordering dynamics of polar active matter. In the second part of my talk, I will show that the same tools and concepts can be effectively used to infer a hydrodynamic description of active fluids composed of particles 6 order of magnitude larger in size: pedestrian crowds.