Related papers: Cross-talk between topological defects in differen…

Morphogenesis emerges from dynamic feedback among geometry, mechanics, and chemistry; however, disentangling these contributions in living systems remains challenging. Here, we focus on the interplay between geometry and mechanics by…

Inverse nematic emulsions in which surfactant-coated water droplets are dispersed in a nematic host fluid have distinctive properties that set them apart from dispersions of two isotropic fluids or of nematic droplets in an isotropic fluid.…

Topological defects are ubiquitous in condensed-matter physics but only hypothetical in the early universe. In spite of this, even an indirect evidence for one of these cosmic objects would revolutionize our vision of the cosmos. We give…

Abundant in nature, colloids also find increasingly important applications in science and technology, ranging from direct probing of kinetics in crystals and glasses to fabrication of third-generation quantum-dot solar cells. Because…

In this paper we rigorously investigate the emergence of defects on Nematic Shells with genus different from one. This phenomenon is related to a non trivial interplay between the topology of the shell and the alignment of the director…

We study the influence of topology on the quench dynamics of a system driven across a quantum critical point. We show how the appearance of certain edge states, which fully characterise the topology of the system, dramatically modifies the…

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…

We show that topological defects in an ion-doped nematic liquid crystal can be used to manipulate the surface charge distribution on chemically homogeneous, charge-regulating external surfaces, using a minimal theoretical model. In…

We study the spatiotemporal patterns that emerge when an active nematic film is topologically constraint. These topological constraints allow to control the non-equilibrium dynamics of the active system. We consider ellipsoidal shapes for…

We formulate the statistical dynamics of topological defects in the active nematic phase, formed in two dimensions by a collection of self-driven particles on a substrate. An important consequence of the non-equilibrium drive is the…

We investigate a counterintuitive geometric interaction between defects and curvature in thin layers of superfluids, superconductors and liquid crystals deposited on curved surfaces. Each defect feels a geometric potential whose functional…

We propose a general formalism to characterize orientational frustration of smectic liquid crystals in confinement by interpreting the emerging networks of grain boundaries as objects with a topological charge. In a formal idealization,…

Topological semimetals have emerged as an important class of quantum materials with novel electronic responses and unconventional transport phenomena. Among them, nodal-line semimetals are distinguished by band crossings that extend along…

Topological defects in systems with liquid-crystalline order are crucial in determining their large-scale properties. In active systems, they are known to have properties impossible at equilibrium: for example, $+1/2$ defects in…

As a method for controlling active materials, researchers have suggested designing patterns of activity on a substrate, which should guide the motion of topological defects. To investigate this concept, we model the behavior of a single…

Topological defects play a key role in a variety of physical systems, ranging from high-energy to solid state physics. They yield fascinating emergent phenomena and serve as a bridge between the microspic and macroscopic world. A skyrmion…

Topology and interactions are foundational concepts in the modern understanding of quantum matter. Their nexus yields three significant research directions: competition between distinct interactions, as in the multiple intertwined phases,…

Topological defects are a universal concept across many disciplines, such as crystallography, liquid-crystalline physics, low-temperature physics, cosmology, and even biology. In nematic liquid crystals, topological defects called…

We use molecular dynamics to study the ordering of a nematic liquid crystal around a spherical particle or droplet. Homeotropic boundary conditions and strong anchoring create a hedgehog director configuration on the particle surface and in…

This is a survey article for the Encyclopedia of Mathematical Physics, 2nd Edition. Topological defects are described in the context of the 2-dimensional Ising model on the lattice, in 2-dimensional quantum field theory, in topological…