Related papers: Instabilities and Oscillations in Isotropic Active…
Active fluids are intrinsically out-of-equilibrium systems due to the internal energy injection of the active constituents. We show here that a transition from a motion-less isotropic state towards a flowing polar one can be possibly driven…
The Starling principle describes exchanges in tissues based on the balance of hydrostatic and osmotic flows. This balance neglects the coupling between mechanics and hydrodynamics, a questionable assumption in strained elastic tissues due…
We model the cytoskeleton as a fractal network by identifying each segment with a simple Kelvin-Voigt element, with a well defined equilibrium length. The final structure retains the elastic characteristics of a solid or a gel, which may…
The actin cytoskeleton in living cells generates forces in conjunction with myosin motor proteins to directly and indirectly drive essential cellular processes. The semiflexible filaments of the cytoskeleton can respond nonlinearly to the…
We report numerical results for the hydrodynamics of inhomogeneous lyotropic and extensile active nematic gels. By simulating the coupled Cahn-Hilliard, Navier-Stokes, and Beris-Edwards equation for the evolution of the composition, flow…
In this article, we construct and analyze models of anisotropic crosslinked polymers employing tools from the theory of liquid crystal elastomers. The anisotropy of these systems stems from the presence of rigid-rod molecular units in the…
We derive a multiphysics model that accounts for network elasticity with spontaneous strains, swelling and nematic interactions in liquid crystal gels (LCGs). We discuss the coupling among the various physical mechanisms, with particular…
We derive the full set of macroscopic equations necessary to describe the dynamics of systems with active polar order in a viscoelastic or elastic background. The active polar order is manifested by a second velocity, whose non-zero modulus…
The hydrodynamic theory of active nematics has been often used to describe the spatio-temporal dynamics of cell flows and motile topological defects within soft confluent tissues. Those theories, however, often rely on the assumption that…
Attractive colloidal gels exhibit solid-like behavior at vanishingly small fractions of solids, owing to ramified space-spanning networks that form due to particle-particle interactions. These networks give the gel its rigidity, and as the…
Collective actuation describes the spontaneous synchronized oscillations taking place in active solids, when the elasto-active feedback, that generically couples the reorientation of the active forces and the elastic stress, is large…
Cytoskeletal networks are the main actuators of cellular mechanics, and a foundational example for active matter physics. In cytoskeletal networks, motion is generated on small scales by filaments that push and pull on each other via…
Understanding the relationship between the microscopic structure and topology of a material and its macroscopic properties is a fundamental challenge across a wide range of systems. Here, we investigate the viscoelasticity of DNA nanostar…
Contractility in animal cells is often generated by molecular motors such as myosin, which require polar substrates for their function. Motivated by recent experimental evidence of motor-independent contractility, we propose a robust…
The nonlinear mechanics of a flexible elastic rod constrained at its edges by a pair of sliding sleeves is analyzed. The planar equilibrium configurations of this variable-length elastica are found to have shape defined only by the…
Reversible crosslinking is a design paradigm for polymeric materials, wherein they are microscopically reinforced with chemical species that form transient crosslinks between the polymer chains. Besides the potential for self-healing,…
Using the density functional formalism we derive expression for the distortion free energy for systems with continuous broken symmetry and use it to derive expression for the elastic constants of smectic phases in which director is tilted…
We describe the large-scale collective behavior of solutions of polar biofilaments and both stationary and mobile crosslinkers. Both mobile and stationary crosslinkers induce filament alignment promoting either polar or nematic order. In…
We demonstrate the instability of the free surface of a soft elastic solid facing downwards. Experiments are carried out using a gel of constant density $\rho$, shear modulus $\mu$, put in a rigid cylindrical dish of depth $h$. When turned…
The design of hydrogels that combine mechanical robustness with dynamic reconfigurability remains a fundamental challenge, as increasing crosslink dissociation rates compromise network integrity. This limitation is addressed through the…