Soliton-like behavior of traveling bands in self-propelled soft particles

Abstract

We have found through numerical simulations of interacting self-propelled deformable particles in two dimensions that traveling bands of ordered state are not destroyed upon a head-on collision just like solitons in integrable systems. Quite recently, Kuwayama and Ishida have reported experiments of non-chemotactic Dictyostelium discoideum mutants in which density waves of migrating cells exhibit a soliton-like behavior upon collision. We investigate properties of the traveling bands to clarify the similarities and differences between the theoretical and experimental results. © The Author(s) 2014.