Trapping and sorting active granular rods

We report experiments and simulations on collective trapping in a horizontal monolayer of tapered granular rods rendered motile by mechanical vibration. A macroscopic fraction of the particles are trapped by a V-shaped obstacle if its opening angle is less than a threshold value of about 120 degrees, consistent with active Brownian simulations [PRL 108, 268307 (2012)]. the transition between trapped and untrapped states becomes sharper with increasing system size in our numerical studies. We offer a theoretical understanding of this nonequilibrium phase transition based on collective noise suppression and an analysis of fluxes. We show also that the trap can serve to separate particles based on their motility and rotational diffusivity.