Related papers: Helices at Interfaces
We theoretically study the conformations of a helical semi-flexible filament confined to a flat surface. This squeezed helix exhibits a variety of unexpected shapes resembling circles, waves or spirals depending on the material parameters.…
The low-energy physics of (quasi)degenerate one-dimensional systems is typically understood as the particle-like dynamics of kinks between stable, ordered structures. Such dynamics, we show, becomes highly non-trivial when the ground states…
We examine the effects of thermal fluctuations on thin elastic filaments with non-circular cross-section and arbitrary spontaneous curvature and torsion. Analytical expressions for orientational correlation functions and for the persistence…
By means of extensive replica-exchange simulations of generic coarse-grained models for helical polymers, we systematically investigate the structural transitions into all possible helical phases for flexible and semiflexible elastic…
Liquid crystals can self-organize into a layered smectic phase. While the smectic layers are typically straight forming a lamellar pattern in bulk, external confinement may drastically distort the layers due to the boundary conditions…
We explore the non-equilibrium dissipative dynamics of a system of identical charged particles trapped on a closed helix. The particles are subject to an external force accelerating them along the underlying structure. The effective…
Topology in condensed matter physics manifests itself in the emergence of edge or surface states protected by underlying symmetries. We review two-dimensional topological insulators whose one-dimensional edge states are characterized by…
The occurrence of coiled or helical morphologies is common in nature, from plant roots to DNA packaging into viral capsids, as well as in applications such as oil drilling processes. In many examples, chiral structures result from the…
Stiff, elongated biomolecules such as filamentous viruses, DNA or cellulose nanocrystals are known to form liquid crystals often exhibiting a helical supramolecular organization. Little is known about the microscopic origin, size and…
Motivated to understand the behavior of biological filaments interacting with membranes of various types, we study a theoretical model for the shape and thermodynamics of intrinsically-helical filaments bound to curved membranes. We show…
Soft elastic filaments that can be stretched, bent and twisted exhibit a range of topologically and geometrically complex morphologies that include plectonemes, solenoids, knot-like and braid-like structures. We combine numerical…
Using an algorithm for simulating equilibrium configurations, we study a fluctuating helical polymer either (i) contained in a cylindrical pore or (ii) wound around a cylindrical rod. We work in the regime where both the contour length and…
Filamentous viruses like influenza and torovirus often display systematic bends and arcs of mysterious physical origin. We propose that such viruses undergo an instability from a cylindrically symmetric to a toroidally curved state. This…
The Slinky is a well-known example of a highly flexible helical spring, exhibiting large, geometrically nonlinear deformations from minimal applied forces. By considering it as a system of coils that act to resist axial, shearing, and…
Intermediate filaments are the least explored among the large cytoskeletal elements. We show here that they display conformational anomalies in narrow microfluidic channels. Their unusual behavior can be understood as the consequence of a…
The advent of twisted moir\'e heterostructures as a playground for strongly correlated electron physics has led to a plethora of experimental and theoretical efforts seeking to unravel the nature of the emergent superconducting and…
The buckling and twisting of slender, elastic fibers is a deep and well-studied field. A slender elastic rod that is twisted with respect to a fixed end will spontaneously form a loop, or hockle, to relieve the torsional stress that builds.…
Hard spheres confined to narrow quasi-one-dimensional cylindrical channels form perfect helical structures at close packing. Here, we use molecular dynamics simulation to show that the thermodynamics, structure and dynamics of the fluid…
We consider two coupled time reversal invariant helical edge modes of the same helicity, such as would occur on two stacked quantum spin Hall insulators. In the presence of interaction, the low energy physics is described by two collective…
Spin squeezing protocols successfully generate entangled many-body quantum states, the key pillars of the second quantum revolution. In our recent work [Phys. Rev. Lett. 129, 090403 (2022)] we showed that spin squeezing described by the…