Related papers: Activity driven fluctuations in living cells
In this work, we investigate the dynamics of the number density fluctuations of a dilute suspension of active particles in a linear viscoelastic fluid. We propose a model for the frequency-dependent diffusion coefficient of the active…
Unlike macroscopic engines, the molecular machinery of living cells is strongly affected by fluctuations. Stochastic Thermodynamics uses Markovian jump processes to model the random transitions between the chemical and configurational…
Activity-mediated unjamming of a confluent glassy system is crucial for several biological processes, such as embryogenesis and cancer metastasis. During these processes, the cells progressively change their junction properties,…
Collections of persistently moving active particles are an example of a nonequilibrium heat bath. One way to study the nature of nonequilibrium fluctuations in such systems is to follow the dynamics of an embedded probe particle. With this…
We use linear stability analysis and hybrid lattice Boltzmann simulations to study the dynamical behaviour of an active nematic confined in a channel made of viscoelastic material. We find that the quiescent, ordered active nematic is…
Active tissues exhibit tension fluctuations that are correlated in space and time. We study a minimal overdamped surface model in which such fluctuations enter as a zero-mean, multiplicative modulation of the local surface tension. Although…
Inspired by recent experiments on the dynamics of particles and polymers in artificial cytoskeletons and in cells, we introduce a modified Langevin equation for a particle in an environment that is a viscoelastic medium and that is brought…
Many active materials and biological systems are driven far from equilibrium by embedded agents that spontaneously generate forces and distort the surrounding material. Probing and characterizing these athermal fluctuations is essential for…
A simple kinetic model of a two-component deformable and reactive bilayer is presented. The two differently shaped components are interconverted by a nonequilibrium reaction, and a phenomenological coupling between local composition and…
Complex interactions between cellular systems and their surrounding extracellular matrices are emerging as important mechanical regulators of cell functions such as proliferation, motility, and cell death, and such cellular systems are…
Fluctuations in a fluid are strongly affected by the presence of a macroscopic gradient making them long-ranged and enhancing their amplitude. While small-scale fluctuations exhibit diffusive lifetimes, larger-scale fluctuations live…
Chemically active colloids or enzymes cluster into dense droplets driven by their phoretic response to collectively generated chemical gradients. Employing Brownian dynamics simulation techniques, our study of the dynamics of such a…
The present habilitation thesis in theoretical biological physics addresses two central dynamical processes in cells and organisms: (i) active motility and motility control and (ii) self-organized pattern formation. The unifying theme is…
We probe non-equilibrium properties of an active bacterial bath through measurements of correlations of passive tracer particles and the response function of a driven, optically trapped tracer. These measurements demonstrate violation of…
We formulate theoretical modeling approaches and develop practical computational simulation methods for investigating the non-equilibrium statistical mechanics of fluid interfaces with passive and active immersed particles. Our approaches…
The spontaneous generation of electrical activity underpins a number of essential physiological processes, and is observed even in tissues where specialized pacemaker cells have not been identified. The emergence of periodic oscillations in…
Many organisms have an elastic skeleton that consists of a closed shell of epithelial cells that is filled with fluid, and can actively regulate both elastic forces in the shell and hydrostatic pressure inside it. In this work we introduce…
Synaptic connections in neuronal circuits are modulated by pre- and post-synaptic spiking activity. Heuristic models of this process of synaptic plasticity can provide excellent fits to results from in-vitro experiments in which pre- and…
A living cell actively generates traction forces on its environment with its actin cytoskeleton. These forces deform the cell elastic substrate which, in turn, affects the traction forces exerted by the cell and can consequently modify the…
The motility of eukaryotic cells is strongly influenced by their environment, with confined cells often developing qualitatively different motility patterns from those migrating on simple two-dimensional substrates. Recent experiments,…