Related papers: A statistical mechanical study of mechanical dual …
The temporal evolution of mechanical energy and spatially-averaged crack speed are both monitored in slowly fracturing artificial rocks. Both signals display an irregular burst-like dynamics, with power-law distributed fluctuations spanning…
The growth of ballistic aggregates on deterministic fractal substrates is studied by means of numerical simulations. First, we attempt the description of the evolving interface of the aggregates by applying the well-established…
The physical properties of granular materials have been extensively studied in recent years. So far, however, there exists no theoretical framework which can explain the observations in a unified manner beyond the phenomenological jamming…
This paper develops a comprehensive two-dimensional generalisation of the recently introduced Friction with Bristle Dynamics (FrBD) framework for rolling contact problems. The proposed formulation extends the one-dimensional FrBD model to…
The motility of a cell can be triggered or inhibited not only by an applied force but also by a mechanically neutral force couple. This type of loading, represented by an applied stress and commonly interpreted as either squeezing or…
The increasing number of protein-based metamaterials demands reliable and efficient theoretical and computational methods to study the physicochemical properties they may display. In this regard, we develop a simulation strategy based on…
We examine the network of forces to be expected in a static assembly of hard, frictionless spherical beads of random sizes, such as a colloidal glass. Such an assembly is minimally connected: the ratio of constraint equations to contact…
Equilibrating proteins and other biomacromolecules is cardinal for molecular dynamics simulation of such biological systems in which they perform free dynamics without any externally-applied mechanical constraint, until thermodynamic…
We model analytically the dynamics of a cytoskeletal filament in a motility assay. The filament is described as rigid rod free to slide in two dimensions. The motor proteins consist of polymeric tails tethered to the plane and modeled as…
As a rough model for the collective motions of cells and organisms we develop here the statistical mechanics of swarms of self-propelled particles. Our approach is closely related to the recently developed theory of active Brownian motion…
In this paper, we have studied, within a discrete WLC model, the spatial constraints in magnetic tweezers used in single molecule experiments. Two elements are involved: first, the fixed plastic slab on which is stuck the initial strand,…
Brownian motion near soft surfaces is a situation widely encountered in nanoscale and biological physics. However, a complete theoretical description is lacking to date. Here, we theoretically investigate the dynamics of a two-dimensional…
We analytically study the role of nonconservative forces, namely viscous couplings, on the statistical properties of the energy flux between two Brownian particles kept at different temperatures. From the dynamical model describing the…
We study mixtures of self-propelled and passive rod-like particles in two dimensions using Brownian dynamics simulations. The simulations demonstrate that the two species spontaneously segregate to generate a rich array of dynamical domain…
Many morphogenetic processes involve mechanical rearrangement of epithelial tissues that is driven by precisely regulated cytoskeletal forces and cell adhesion. The mechanical state of the cell and intercellular adhesion are not only the…
We report the study of a new experimental granular Brownian motor, inspired to the one published in [Phys. Rev. Lett. 104, 248001 (2010)], but different in some ingredients. As in that previous work, the motor is constituted by a rotating…
We study the conformation and dynamics of a single polymer chain that is pulled by a constant force applied at its one end with the other end free. Such a situation is relevant to the growing technology of manipulating individual…
Using analytical calculations and computer simulations we consider both the lateral diffusion of a membrane protein and the fluctuation spectrum of the membrane in which the protein is embedded. The membrane protein interacts with the…
Traveling waves describe diverse natural phenomena from crystal growth in physics to range expansions in biology. Two classes of waves exist with very different properties: pulled and pushed. Pulled waves are driven by high growth rates at…
The spin-1/2 Ising model on a square lattice, with fluctuating bond interactions between nearest neighbors and in the presence of a random magnetic field, is investigated within the framework of the effective field theory based on the use…