Related papers: Bundle formation in parallel aligned polymers with…
We introduce and discuss the concept of modular entanglement. This is the entanglement that is established between the end points of modular systems composed by sets of interacting moduli of arbitrarily fixed size. We show that end-to-end…
We consider a biopolymer bundle consisting of filaments that are crosslinked together. The crosslinks are reversible: they can dynamically bind and unbind adjacent filament pairs as controlled by a binding enthalpy. The bundle is subjected…
The interstellar medium is characterised by an intricate filamentary network which exhibits complex structures. These show a variety of different shapes (e.g. junctions, rings, etc.) deviating strongly from the usually assumed cylindrical…
Understanding interactions between microparticles and lipid membranes is of increasing importance, especially for unraveling the influence of microplastics on our health and environment. Here, we study how a short-ranged adhesive force…
We introduce a phenomenological model to study the properties of bundles of polar filaments which interact via active elements. The stability of the homogeneous state, the attractors of the dynamics in the unstable regime and the tensile…
Inspired by the complex influence of the globular crosslinking proteins on the formation of biofilament bundles in living organisms, we study and analyze a theoretical model for the structure and thermodynamics of bundles of helical…
Polymer chains decorated with a fraction of monomers capable of forming reversible bonds form transient polymer networks that are important in soft and biological systems. If chains are flexible and the attractive monomers are all of the…
One of the most interesting phenomena in the soft-matter realm consists in the spontaneous formation of super-molecular structures (microphases) in condition of thermodynamic equilibrium. A simple mechanism responsible for this…
A theory of double affine and special double affine bundles, i.e. differential manifolds with two compatible (special) affine bundle structures, is developed as an affine counterpart of the theory of double vector bundles. The motivation…
The mechanical, optical, and chemical properties of a wide variety of soft materials are enabled and constrained by their bulk structure. How this structure emerges at small system sizes during self-assembly has been the subject of decades…
Many organisms exhibit branching morphologies that twist around each other and become entangled. Entanglement occurs when different objects interlock, creating complex and often irreversible configurations. This physical phenomenon is…
Motivated by recent findings, we discuss the existence of a direct and robust mechanism providing discontinuous absorbing transitions in short range systems with single species, with no extra symmetries or conservation laws. We consider…
The gravitational clustering hierarchy and dissipative gas processes are both involved in the formation of bulges. Here we present a simple empirical model in which bulge material is assembled via gravitational accretion of the visible…
A phenomenological description for active bundles of polar filaments is presented. The activity of the bundle results from crosslinks, that induce relative displacements between the aligned filaments. Our generic description is based on…
The formation of bundles composed of actin filaments and cross-linking proteins is an essential process in the maintenance of the cells' cytoskeleton. It has also been recreated by in-vitro experiments, where actin networks are routinely…
We report the formation of alternating strings and clusters in a binary suspension of repulsive charged colloids with double layers larger than the particle size. Within a binary cell model we include many-body and charge-regulation effects…
In this paper we study aggregation kinetics in systems of particles functionalised by complementary linkers. Most of the coarse-grained models currently employed to study large-scale self-assembly of these systems rely on effective…
Multivalency is a common biological mechanism of formation of strong reversible and selective bonds by grouping weak bonds. Polymers often act as a scaffold to which multiple binding groups are attached. Here I present an analytical theory…
Here, we provide an overview of theoretical approaches to semiflexible polymers and their networks. Such semiflexible polymers have large bending rigidities that can compete with the entropic tendency of a chain to crumple up into a random…
We present a braided circuit topology framework for investigating topology and structural phase transitions in aggregates of semiflexible polymers. In the conventional approach to circuit topology, which specifically applies to single…