Related papers: Defect-Mediated Phase Transitions in Active Soft M…
We present a generic framework for modelling three-dimensional deformable shells of active matter that captures the orientational dynamics of the active particles and hydrodynamic interactions on the shell and with the surrounding…
We investigate systems of self-propelled particles with alignment interaction. Compared to previous work, the force acting on the particles is not normalized and this modification gives rise to phase transitions from disordered states at…
The study of liquid crystals at equilibrium has led to fundamental insights into the nature of ordered materials, as well as to practical applications such as display technologies. Active nematics are a fundamentally different class of…
Topological phases of matter are defined by their nontrivial patterns of ground-state quantum entanglement, which is irremovable so long as the excitation gap and the protecting symmetries, if any, are maintained. Recent studies on…
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:…
ATP-driven microtubule-kinesin bundles can self-assemble into two-dimensional active liquid crystals (ALCs) that exhibit a rich creation and annihilation dynamics of topological defects, reminiscent of particle-pair production processes in…
We investigate the dynamics of an active particle in two-dimensional spherical crystals, which provide an ideal environment to illustrate the interplay of active particle and crystallographic defects. A moving active particle is observed to…
Using a simple model, we study the fluctuating dynamics of inextensible, semiflexible polar filaments interacting with active and directed force generating centres such as molecular motors. Taking into account the fact that the activity…
Using the Born-Oppenheimer approximation, we present a general description of topological defects dynamics in $p$-atic materials on curved surfaces, and simplify it in the case of active nematics. We find that activity induces a geometric…
Topological defects can be formed during inflation by phase transitions as well as by quantum nucleation. We study the effect of the expansion of the Universe on the internal structure of the defects. We look for stationary solutions to the…
Topological quantum and classical materials can exhibit robust properties that are protected against disorder, for example for noninteracting particles and linear waves. Here, we demonstrate how to construct topologically protected states…
The motion of topological defects is an important feature of the dynamics of all liquid crystals, and is especially conspicuous in active liquid crystals. Understanding defect motion is a challenging theoretical problem, because the…
Biological cells can actively tune their intracellular architecture according to their overall shape. Here we explore the rheological implication of such coupling in a minimal model of a dense cellular material where each cell exerts an…
The transition from complex-periodic to chaotic behavior is investigated in oscillatory media supporting spiral waves. We find turbulent regimes characterized by the spontaneous nucleation, proliferation and erratic motion of…
The degree of randomness, or partial order, present in two-dimensional supramolecular arrays of isophthalate tetracarboxylic acids is shown to vary due to subtle chemical changes such as the choice of solvent or small differences in…
Many physical systems involve two types of orientational order, which are coupled together. For example, ferroelectric nematic liquid crystals have coupled polar and nematic order, and tilted hexatic phases have coupled polar and hexatic…
We investigate dynamics of deformable self-propelled particles with a repulsive interaction whose magnitude depends on the relative direction of elongation of a pair of particles. A collective motion of the particles appears in two…
We consider a coarse-grained description of a system of self-propelled particles given by hydrodynamic equations for the density and polarization fields. We find that the ordered moving or flocking state of the system is unstable to spatial…
The self-propulsion of +1/2 topological defects is a hallmark of active nematic fluids, where the defects are advected by the flow field they themselves generate. In this paper we propose a minimal model for defect self-propulsion in a…
Defects play an important role in a number of fields dealing with ordered structures. They are often described in terms of their topology, mutual interaction and their statistical characteristics. We demonstrate theoretically and…