Templated dynamical phases in biased ensembles of pulsating active matter*

Using a recently introduced model of pulsating active matter we investigate its rare dynamics at high density conditions with respect to local and global order parameters in its size distribution. We find that for small systems these result in emergent dynamical phases that generate cycling, arrested or wave behavior as a function of box geometry and bias with respect to the order parameter. We ascribe cycling and arrested transitions to boundary effects imposed by the box geometry that alter its average packing properties in the steady state, and which remarkably `templates' the nature of the dynamical transition. Wave behavior, on the other hand, depends on an additional minimum box length constraint that builds on top of these packing conditions. We explain the emergence of arrested or cycling states from the perspective of a master curve between a global order parameter and average repulsion which hold generically for different box geometries, number of particles and densities.