Meet The Swirlon – A New State of Active Matter Discovered By Physicists

15. What is Swirlonic Matter?

This type of new matter was reported in 2020 after being discovered by Professor Nikolai Brilliantov and his colleagues. This state was an unrecognized state of self-propelled particles, and consists of swirling that are formed by groups of these self-propelled particles.

They all orbited a common central mass and moved with constant velocity. What made this even odder is that this motion was contrary to the applied force, and acted similar to objects in viscous media. These swirlons attracted each other and formed together to create a larger joint swirlon.

Furthermore, these swirls acted by their own self-driving forces, and different states of these particles do not coexist together.