Related papers: Defect dynamics in active nematics

Active matter is characterized by its ability to induce motion by self-generated stress. In the case of a solid, such motion can lead to shape transformations. The stress-generating components can be anisotropic endowing the material with…

Defects in liquid crystals are of great practical importance and theoretical interest. Despite tremendous efforts, predicting the location and transition of defects under various topological constraint and external field remains to be a…

Freestanding tubular crystals offer a general description of crystalline order on deformable surfaces with cylindrical topology, such as single-walled carbon nanotubes, microtubules, and recently reported colloidal assemblies. These systems…

Topological defects in nematically aligned cell populations play a critical role in modulating collective motion, from microbial colonies to epithelial tissues. Despite the potential of manipulating such topological defects to control…

Topological defects, such as quantum vortices, determine the properties of quantum fluids. The study of their properties has been at the center of activity in solid state and BEC communities. On the other hand, the non-trivial behavior of…

We investigate the mechanics of an active droplet endowed with internal nematic order and surrounded by an isotropic Newtonian fluid. Using numerical simulations we demonstrate that, due to the interplay between the active stresses and the…

Periodic boundary conditions are a common theoretical and computational tool used to emulate effectively infinite domains. However, two-dimensional periodic domains are topologically distinct from the infinite plane, eliciting the question:…

We present nonlinear dynamic equations for nematic and smectic $A$ liquid crystals in the presence of an alternating electric field and explain their derivation in detail. The local electric field acting in any liquid-crystalline system is…

Topological phenomena typically govern the behavior of delocalized waves, giving rise to robust transport in electronic, photonic, and mechanical systems. Whether similar principles can directly control the motion of a localized particle,…

Nematic colloids exhibit a large diversity of topological defects and structures induced by colloidal particles in the orientationally ordered liquid crystal host fluids. These defects and field configurations define elastic interactions…

We consider the dynamics of active nematics droplets on flat surfaces, based on the continuum hydrodynamic theory. We investigate a wide range of dynamical regimes as a function of the activity and droplet size on surfaces characterized by…

Colonies of rod-shaped bacteria constitute a system of colloidal active matter with nematic properties. As a single initial bacterium multiplies through repeated divisions, the resulting colony quickly loses long-range orientational order,…

Topological defects are crucial to the thermodynamics and structure of condensed matter systems. For instance, when incorporated into crystalline membranes like graphene, disclinations with positive and negative topological charge…

Active emulsions and liquid crystalline shells are intriguing and experimentally realisable types of topological matter. Here we numerically study the morphology and spatiotemporal dynamics of a double emulsion, where one or two passive…

Using agent-based simulations of self-propelled particles subject to short-range repulsion and nematic alignment we explore the dynamical phases of a dense active material confined to the surface of a sphere. We map the dynamical phase…

A nematic membrane is a sheet with embedded orientational order, which can occur in biological cells, liquid crystal films, manufactured materials, and other soft matter systems. By formulating the free energy of nematic films using tensor…

From the theory of topological defect formation proposed for the early universe, the so called Kibble mechanism, it follows that the density correlation functions of defects and anti-defects in a given system should be completely determined…

By using topological current theory, we study the inner topological structure of the topological defects in two-dimensional (2D) crystal. We find that there are two elementary point defects topological current in two-dimensional crystal,…

Active colloids and liquid crystals are capable of locally converting the macroscopically-supplied energy into directional motion and promise a host of new applications, ranging from drug delivery to cargo transport at the mesoscale. Here…

We report curling self-propulsion in aqueous emulsions of common mesogenic compounds. Nematic liquid crystal droplets self-propel in a surfactant solution with concentrations above the critical micelle concentration while undergoing…