Related papers: Statistical Challenges in Microrheology
Environmental science almost invariably proposes problems of extreme complexity, typically characterized by strongly nonlinear evolution dynamics. The systems under investigation have many degrees of freedom - which makes them complicated -…
Viscoelastic materials containing bubbles or drops are encountered in numerous application fields, and are presently the object of much interest. The motion of bubbles and drops in these matrices can be significantly different than in…
We employ multiple sinusoid modulated optical tweezers to measure the frequency dependent rheological parameters of a linear viscoelastic fluid over five decades of frequency in a single shot, hitherto not achieved using active…
When an ensemble of particles interact hydrodynamically, they generically display large-scale transient structures such as swirls in sedimenting particles [1], or colloidal strings in sheared suspensions [2]. Understanding these…
We develop and implement a novel lattice Boltzmann scheme to study multicomponent flows on curved surfaces, coupling the continuity and Navier-Stokes equations with the Cahn-Hilliard equation to track the evolution of the binary fluid…
Restrictions to molecular motion by barriers (membranes) are ubiquitous in biological tissues, porous media and composite materials. A major challenge is to characterize the microstructure of a material or an organism nondestructively using…
Understanding processes in porous media is fundamental to a broad spectrum of environmental, energy, and geoscience applications. These processes include multiphase fluid transport, interfacial dynamics, reactive transformations, and…
Mechanical properties of the cell are important biomarkers for probing its architectural changes caused by cellular processes and/or pathologies. The development of microfluidic technologies have enabled measuring cell mechanics at…
Unraveling the connections between microscopic structure, emergent physical properties, and slow dynamics has long been a challenge when studying the glass transition. The absence of clear visible structural order in amorphous…
Magnetic fluids are colloidal suspensions of ferromagnetic particles covered with a surfactant layer, dispersed in a host liquid. The existence of cooperative phenomena in such magnetic colloidal systems, makes the determining of their…
Self-propelled particles with hydrodynamic interactions (microswimmers) have previously been shown to produce long-range ordering phenomena. Many theoretical explanations for these collective phenomena are connected to instabilities in the…
Giant micelles are elongated, polymer-like objects created by the self-assembly of amphiphilic molecules (such as detergents) in solution. Giant micelles are typically flexible, and can become highly entangled even at modest concentrations.…
It is shown that the dynamics of a two-dimensional crystal with a finite concentration of dislocations, as well as vacancy and interstitial defects, is governed by the hydrodynamic equations of a viscoelastic medium. At the longest length…
An active area of research interest is the inference of ecological models of complex microbial communities. Inferring such ecological models entails understanding the interactions between microbes and how they affect each other's growth.…
Research on human skin anatomy reveals its complex multi-scale, multi-phase nature, with up to 70% of its composition being bounded and free water. Fluid movement plays a key role in the skin's mechanical and biological responses,…
Microorganism motility often takes place within complex, viscoelastic fluid environments, e.g., sperm in cervicovaginal mucus and bacteria in biofilms. In such complex fluids, strains and stresses generated by the microorganism are stored…
Compressing a porous, fluid-filled material will drive the interstitial fluid out of the pore space, as when squeezing water out of a kitchen sponge. Inversely, injecting fluid into a porous material can deform the solid structure, as when…
The dynamic behavior of a partially wetting polymer droplet driven over a nanostructured interface is studied using molecular dynamics simulations. We consider the bead-spring model to represent a polymeric liquid that partially wets a…
The stochastic dynamics of small elastic objects in fluid are central to many important and emerging technologies. It is now possible to measure and use the higher modes of motion of elastic structures when driven by Brownian motion alone.…
Diffusive motion is a fundamental transport mechanism in physical and biological systems, governing dynamics across a wide range of scales -- from molecular transport to animal foraging. In many complex systems, however, diffusion deviates…