  We show that two active particles can form a bound state by coupling to a
driven nonequilibrium environment. We specifically investigate the case of two
mutually noninteracting run-and-tumble probes moving on a ring, each in
short-range interaction with driven colloids. Under conditions of time-scale
separation, these active probes become trapped in bound states. In fact, the
bound state appears at high enough persistence (low effective temperature).
From the perspective of a co-moving frame, where colloids are in thermal
equilibrium and the probes are active and driven, an appealing analogy appears
with Cooper pairing, as electrons can be viewed as run-and-tumble particles in
a pilot-wave picture.
