Related papers: Biphasic, Lyotropic, Active Nematics
We show that the dominant mode of alignment plays an important role in dry active nematics,leading to two dynamical sub-classes defined by the nature of the instability of the nematic bands that characterize, in these systems, the…
Anisotropic fluids appear in a diverse array of systems, from liquid-crystal displays to bacterial swarms, and are characterized by orientational order. Large colloidal particles immersed in such environments disturb the medium's…
Topological defects are at the root of the large-scale organization of liquid crystals. In two-dimensional active nematics, two classes of topological defects of charges $\pm 1/2$ are known to play a major role due to active stresses.…
Dynamic simulations of the isotropic-nematic phase transformation of liquid crystal droplets under homeotropic anchoring are found to predict chiral symmetry-breaking dynamics. These observations occur when using material parameters for…
Inspired by recent experiments of cells accumulating on anisotropic substrates, we study a two-dimensional, compressible, isotropic, active fluid in the presence of anisotropic friction. We find that regions of anisotropic friction that are…
The field of active nematics has traditionally employed descriptions based on dipolar activity, with interactions that align along a single axis. However, it has been theoretically predicted that interactions with a substrate, prevalent in…
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 microscopically driven liquid crystals that exhibit dynamical steady states characterized by the creation and annihilation of topological defects. Motivated by experimental realizations of such systems made of biopolymer…
Elongated active units cannot spontaneously break rotation symmetry in bulk fluids to form nematic or polar phases. This has led to the image of active suspensions as spontaneously evolving, spatiotemporally chaotic fluids. In contrast, I…
We numerically investigate how spatial variations of extensile or contractile active stress affect bulk active nematic systems in two and three dimensions. In the absence of defects, activity gradients drive flows which re-orient the…
"Active nematics" are orientationally ordered but apolar fluids composed of interacting constituents individually powered by an internal source of energy. When activity exceeds a system-size dependent threshold, spatially uniform active…
Real-life bacteria often swim in complex fluids, but our understanding of the interactions between bacteria and complex surroundings is still evolving. In this work, rod-like \textit{Bacillus subtilis} swims in a quasi-2D environment with…
The anchoring of nematic liquid crystals on surfaces with grafted liquid crystalline chain molecules is studied by computer simulations and within a mean field approach. The computer simulations show that a swollen layer of collectively…
Coupling between flow and orientation is a central issue in understanding the collective dynamics of active biofilaments and cells. Active stresses generated by motor activity destroy (quasi-)long-range orientational order and induce…
Topological defects are distinctive signatures of liquid crystals. They profoundly affect the viscoelastic behavior of the fluid by constraining the orientational structure in a way that inevitably requires global changes not achievable…
We present large-scale molecular dynamics simulations of a nematic-isotropic interface in a system of repulsive ellipsoidal molecules, focusing in particular on the capillary wave fluctuations of the interfacial position. The interface…
We consider a continuum model of active viscoelastic matter, whereby an active nematic liquid-crystal is coupled to a minimal model of polymer dynamics with a viscoelastic relaxation time $\tau_C$. To explore the resulting interplay between…
We investigate the effect of an anisotropic substrate on the turbulent dynamics of a simulated two dimensional active nematic. This is introduced as an anisotropic friction and an effective anisotropic viscosity, with the orientation of the…
We numerically investigate the morphology and disclination line dynamics of active nematic droplets in three dimensions. Although our model only incorporates the simplest possible form of achiral active stress, active nematic droplets…
In equilibrium hard-rod fluids, and in effective hard-rod descriptions of anisotropic soft-particle systems, the transition from the isotropic (I) phase to the nematic phase (N) is observed above the rod aspect ratio L/D = 3.70 as predicted…