  Recent numerical studies have identified the persistence time of active
motion as a critical parameter governing glassy dynamics in dense active
matter. Here we studied dynamics in liquids of granular active ellipsoids with
tunable persistence and velocity. We show that increasing the persistence time
at moderate supercooling is equivalent to increasing the strength of attraction
in equilibrium liquids and results in reentrant dynamics not just in the
translational degrees of freedom, as anticipated, but also in the orientational
ones. However, at high densities, motile topological defects, unique to active
liquids of elongated particles, hindered dynamical arrest. Most remarkably, for
the highest activity, we observed intermittent dynamics due to the
jamming-unjamming of these defects for the first time.
