Related papers: Active Polymers Confer Fast Reorganization Kinetic…
Polymers confined in corrugated channels, i.e. channels of varying amplitude, display {multiple local maxima and minima of the diffusion coefficient upon increasing their degree of polymerization $N$}. We propose a theoretical effective…
We investigate the length distribution of self-assembled, long and stiff polymers at thermal equilibrium. Our analysis is based on calculating the partition functions of stiff polymers of variable lengths in the elastic regime. Our…
The interplay between cytoskeletal architecture and the nonlinearity of the interactions due to bucklable filaments plays a key role in modulating the cell's mechanical stability and affecting its structural rearrangements. We study a model…
We aim to identify the control principles governing the adaptable formation of non-equilibrium structures in actomyosin networks. We build a phenomenological model and predict that biasing the energy dissipated by molecular motors should…
We study energy relaxation in a phenomenological model for polymer built from rheological considerations: a one dimensional nonlinear lattice with dissipative couplings. These couplings are well known in polymer's community to be possibly…
Activity and renewability are distinctive features of living matter, and constitute a new class of materials that we term renewable active matter. A striking example is the cell cytoskeleton, where myosin filaments bind to the actin…
The coupled dynamics of entangled polymers which span a broad time and length scales govern the unique viscoelastic properties of polymers. To follow chain mobility by numerical simulations from the intermediate Rouse and reptation regimes…
Linear polymers are represented as chains of hopping reptons and their motion is described as a stochastic process on a lattice. This admittedly crude approximation still catches essential physics of polymer motion, i.e. the universal…
The proper functions of tissues depend on the ability of cells to withstand stress and maintain shape. Central to this process is the cytoskeleton, comprised of three polymeric networks: F-actin, microtubules, and intermediate filaments.…
Biological organisms often have elongated, flexible structures with some degree of chirality in their bodies or movements. In nature, these organisms frequently take advantage of self-encapsulation mechanisms that create folded…
Joint ground states of two directed polymers in a random medium are investigated. Using exact min-cost flow optimization the true two-line ground-state is compared with the single line ground state plus its first excited state. It is found…
In this work, we explore the dynamics of active entangled chains using molecular dynamics simulations of a modified Kremer-Grest model. The active chains are diluted in a mesh of very long passive linear chains, to avoid constraint release…
The motion of active polymers in a porous medium is shown to depend critically on flexibilty, activity and degree of polymerization. For given Peclet number, we observe a transition from localisation to diffusion as the stiffness of the…
Many types of mammalian cells exert active contractile forces and mechanically deform their elastic substrate, to accomplish biological functions such as cell migration. These substrate deformations provide a mechanism by which cells can…
Coupled length and time scales determine the dynamic behavior of polymers and underlie their unique viscoelastic properties. To resolve the long-time dynamics it is imperative to determine which time and length scales must be correctly…
We study how an active bath is transduced into the internal fluctuation spectrum of a semiflexible polymer. Starting from the statistics of active forces exerted by an explicit bath of active Brownian particles, we derive an effective…
Active matter systems may be characterised by the conversion of energy into active motion, e.g. the self-propulsion of microorganisms. Artificial active colloids form models which exhibit essential properties of more complex biological…
Spontaneous formation of knots in long polymers at equilibrium is inevitable but becomes rare in sufficiently short chains. Here, we show that knotting and knot complexity increase by orders of magnitude in diblock polymers with a fraction…
We study microscopic engines that use a single active particle as their "working medium". Part of the energy required to drive the directed motion of the particle can be recovered as work, even at constant temperature. A wide class of…
The polymerization dynamics of double-stranded polymers, such as actin filaments, is investigated theoretically using simple chemical kinetic models that explicitly take into account some microscopic details of the polymer structure and the…