Directed percolation transition to active turbulence driven by non-reciprocal forces

We numerically study the collective dynamics of dense particle assemblies driven by non-reciprocal pairwise forces of amplitude κ. At a critical value κc, the system undergoes a dynamical phase transition from an absorbing state (κ < κc) to a chaotic steady state (κ > κc). The chaotic phase is marked by nontrivial spatiotemporal velocity correlations and mixing, reminiscent of active turbulence in self-propelled systems. The sharp onset of chaos shows critical scaling consistent with the universality class of directed percolation. We argue that this transition is generic to a broad class of locally-driven, dense disordered materials.