Defect dynamics in growing bacterial colonies

Abstract: Colonies of rod-shaped bacteria constitute a system of colloidal active matter with nematic properties. As a single initial bacterium multiplies through repeated divisions, the resulting colony quickly loses long-range orientational order, but retains locally ordered domains. At the boundaries of these domains, topological defects emerge, which move around randomly as the colony grows. In both experiments and simulations, we find that these defects are created at a rate that corresponds to the exponential growth of the colony, resulting in a stable defect density. Both this defect density and the colony's correlation length are regulated by the aspect ratio of the rod-shaped particles. Moreover, we find that the defect dynamics are well described by a Gamma distribution, which is due to repeated divisions and subsequent re-orientations of the bacteria.