Related papers: Banding, Excitability and Chaos in Active Nematic …

We analyze a model of mutually-propelled filaments suspended in a two-dimensional solvent. The system undergoes a mean-field isotropic-nematic transition for large enough filament concentrations and the nematic order parameter is allowed to…

We use linear stability analysis and hybrid lattice Boltzmann simulations to study the dynamical behaviour of an active nematic confined in a channel made of viscoelastic material. We find that the quiescent, ordered active nematic is…

Recent experiments on active materials, such as dense bacterial suspensions and microtubule-kinesin motor mixtures, show a promising potential for achieving self-sustained flows. However, to develop active microfluidics it is necessary to…

We consider a continuum model of active viscoelastic matter, whereby an active nematic liquid-crystal is coupled to a minimal model of polymer dynamics with a viscoelastic relaxation time $\tau_C$. To explore the resulting interplay between…

We use a continuum, two-fluid approach to study a mixture of two active nematic fluids. Even in the absence of thermodynamically-driven ordering, for mixtures of different activities we observe turbulent microphase separation, where domains…

Active nematic fluids confined in narrow channels generate spontaneous flows when the activity is sufficiently intense. Recently, it was shown that if the molecular anchoring at the channel walls is conflicting flows are initiated even in…

We investigate channel-confined, nematic liquid crystals using the Beris-Edwards model of nematohydrodynamics. Using strong homeotropic anchoring at the walls, we find multistability i.e. multiple coexisting states where the uniform nematic…

Many active fluid systems encountered in biology are set in total geometric confinement. Cytoplasmic streaming in plant cells is a prominent and ubiquitous example, in which cargo-carrying molecular motors move along polymer filaments and…

Suspensions of actively driven anisotropic objects exhibit distinctively nonequilibrium behaviors, and current theories predict that they are incapable of sustaining orientational order at high activity. By contrast, here we show that…

Increasing evidence suggests that active matter exhibits instances of mixed symmetry that cannot be fully described by either polar or nematic formalism. Here, we introduce a minimal model that integrates self-propulsion into the active…

The interplay between active matter and its environment is central to understanding emergent behavior in biological and synthetic systems. Here, we show that coupling active nematic flows to small-amplitude deformations of a compliant…

We consider a phenomenological continuum model for an active nematic fluid and show a universal, model independent, instability which renders the homogeneous nematic state unstable to order fluctuations. Using numerical and analytic tools…

Using novel micro-printing techniques, we develop a versatile experimental setup that allows us to study how lateral confinement tames the active flows and defect properties of the microtubule/kinesin active nematic system. We demonstrate…

We study flow driven through a finite-length planar rigid channel by a fixed upstream flux, where a segment of one wall is replaced by a pre-stressed elastic beam subject to uniform external pressure. The steady and unsteady systems are…

We study the rheological properties of a granular suspension subject to constant shear stress by constant volume molecular dynamics simulations. We derive the system `flow diagram' in the volume fraction/stress plane $(\phi,F)$: at low…

Simulations employing the continuum model of Gao et al. [Phy. Rev. Fluids, 2 093302 (2017)] are used to study the transport of an object in a closed two-dimensional container by a dense suspension of contractile active agents. For…

Continuum hydrodynamic models of active liquid crystals have been used to describe dynamic self-organising systems such as bacterial swarms and cytoskeletal gels. A key prediction of such models is the existence of self-stabilising kink…

We use Langevin dynamics simulations to study dynamical behaviour of a dense planar layer of active semi-flexible filaments. Using the strength of active force and the thermal persistence length as parameters, we map a detailed phase…

We study phase-separating fluid mixtures as they demix in the presence of chemical reactions that maintain them away from thermodynamic equilibrium. We show that in such chemically active emulsions the interplay of chemical reactions, phase…

We show that "dry" active nematics, e.g. collections of shaken elongated granular particles, exhibit large-scale spatiotemporal chaos made of interacting dense, ordered, band-like structures in a parameter region including the linear onset…