Related papers: Defect annihilation and proliferation in active ne…

Catalytically active colloids maintain non-equilibrium conditions in which they produce and deplete chemicals and hence effectively act as sources and sinks of molecules. While individual colloids that are symmetrically coated do not…

Liquid crystals generally support orientational singularities of the director field known as topological defects. These latter modifiy transport properties in their vicinity as if the geometry was non-Euclidean. We present a state of the…

We investigate the dynamics of elastic capsules suspended in two-dimensional active nematic fluids using lattice Boltzmann simulations. The capsules, modeled as flexible membranes enclosing active internal regions, exhibit a rich variety of…

We propose a reaction-diffusion system that converts topological information of an active nematic into chemical signals. We show that a curvature-activated reaction dipole is sufficient for creating a system that dynamically senses topology…

Topological defects are singularities within a field that cannot be removed by continuous transformations. The definition of these irregularities requires an ordered reference configuration, calling into question whether they exist in…

While active systems possess notable potential to form the foundation of new classes of autonomous materials, designing systems that can extract functional work from active surroundings has proven challenging. In this work, we extend these…

Active colloids constitute a novel class of materials composed of colloidal-scale particles locally converting chemical energy into motility, mimicking micro-organisms. Evolving far from equilibrium, these systems display structural…

Field theories predict that phase transitions sequentially breaking continuous and discrete symmetries can generate hybrid topological structures in which defects of different dimensionalities merge. We report experimental and numerical…

Confining a liquid crystal imposes topological constraints on the orientational order, allowing global control of equilibrium systems by manipulation of anchoring boundary conditions. In this article, we investigate whether a similar…

Active nematics are materials composed of mobile, elongated particles that can transform energy from the environment into a mechanical motion. Current experimental realizations of the active nematics are of biological origin and include…

We theoretically show how two impurity defects in a crystalline structure can be entangled through coupling with the crystal. We demonstrate this with a harmonic chain of trapped ions in which two ions of a different species are embedded.…

Nematic liquid crystals can dramatically reconfigure under dynamic forcing, providing exciting opportunities in active matter. Here, we study a hybrid disk colloid rotated by an external field which generates a dynamic companion topological…

Spontaneous emergence of organized states in materials driven by non-equilibrium conditions is of significant fundamental and technological interest. In many cases, the organized states are complex, hence, with some well-studied exceptions,…

In complex crystals close to melting or at finite temperatures, different types of defects are ubiquitous and their role becomes relevant in the mechanical response of these solids. Conventional elasticity theory fails to provide a…

Disordered hyperuniform systems are exotic states of matter that completely suppress large-scale density fluctuations like crystals, and yet possess no Bragg peaks similar to liquids or glasses. Such systems have been discovered in a…

The density and correlations of topological defects are investigated numerically in a model of a d=2 elastic medium subject to a periodic quenched random potential. The computed density of defects decreases approximately exponentially with…

Active matter refers to a broad class of non-equilibrium systems where energy is continuously injected at the level of individual ``particles". These systems exhibit emergent collective behaviors that have no direct thermal-equilibrium…

The nature of defects in amorphous materials, analogous to vacancies and dislocations in crystals, remains elusive. Here we explore their nature in a three-dimensional microscopic model glass-former which describes granular, colloidal,…

Biological active matter like the cytoskeleton or tissues are characterized by their ability to transform chemical energy into mechanical stress. In addition, it often exhibits orientational order, which is essential for many cellular and…

Active matter encompasses different nonequilibrium systems in which individual constituents convert energy into non-conservative forces or motion at the microscale. This review provides an elementary introduction to the role of topology in…