Extreme value statistics for branching run-and-tumble particles

The extreme value statistics of active matter offer significant insight into their unique properties. A phase transition has recently been reported in a model of branching run-and-tumble particles, describing the spatial spreading of an evolving colony of active matter in one-dimension. In a "persistent" phase, the particles form macroscopic robust clusters that ballistically propagate as a whole while in an "intermittent" phase, particles are isolated instead. We focus our study on the fluctuations of the rightmost position $x_{\max}(t)$ reached by time $t$ for this model. At long time, as the colony progressively invades the unexplored region, the cumulative probability of $x_{\max}(t)$ is described by a travelling front. The transition has a remarkable impact on this front. In the intermittent phase it is qualitatively similar to the front satisfying the Fisher-KPP equation, which famously describes the extreme value statistics of the non-active branching Brownian motion. A dramatically different behaviour appears in the persistent phase, where activity imparts the front with unexpected and unusual features which we compute exactly.

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