Related papers: Dancing disclinations in confined active nematics

Many active biological particles, such as swimming microorganisms or motor-proteins, do work on their environment by going though a periodic sequence of shapes. Interactions between particles can lead to the phase-synchronization of their…

Solutions of long, flexible polymer molecules are complex fluids that simultaneously exhibit fluid-like and solid-like behaviour. When subjected to an external flow, dilute polymer solutions exhibit elastic turbulence - a unique, chaotic…

Active matter is naturally out of equilibrium which results in the emergence of diverse dynamic steady states, including the omnipresent chaotic state known as the active turbulence. However, much less is known how active systems…

A nematic liquid crystal confined to the surface of a sphere exhibits topological defects of total charge $+2$ due to the topological constraint. In equilibrium, the nematic field forms four $+1/2$ defects, located at the corners of a…

One of the defining features of active nematics is that above a critical activity the quiescent state becomes unstable to a distorted, flowing one. We show that spatial variations in activity can fundamentally change the nature of this…

Active fluids operate by constantly dissipating energy at the particle level to perform a directed motion, yielding dynamics and phases without any equilibrium equivalent. The emerging behaviors have been studied extensively, yet…

Topological defects play a central role in the formation and organization of various biological systems. Historically, such nonequilibrium defects have been mainly studied in the context of homogeneous active nematics. Phase-separated…

Surface-driven flows are ubiquitous in nature, from subcellular cytoplasmic streaming to organ-scale ciliary arrays. Here, we model how confined geometries can be used to engineer complex hydrodynamic patterns driven by activity prescribed…

The self-organization of active particles on a two-dimensional single-occupancy lattice is investigated, with an emphasis on the effects of boundary confinement and the influence of an external mean fluid flow. The study examines collective…

We study ionic and mass transport in a liquid crystalline fluid film in its nematic phase under an applied electrostatic field. Both analytic and numerical solutions are given for some prototypical configurations of interest in…

We numerically model a two-dimensional active nematic confined by a periodic array of fixed obstacles. Even in the passive nematic, the appearance of topological defects is unavoidable due to planar anchoring by the obstacle surfaces. We…

I put forward a continuum theory for active nematic gels, defined as fluids or suspensions of orientable rodlike objects endowed with active dynamics, that is based on symmetry arguments and compatibility with thermodynamics. The starting…

The conventional topological description given by the fundamental group of nematic order parameter does not adequately explain the entangled defect line structures that have been observed in nematic colloids. We introduce a new topological…

We provide a minimal model for an active nematic film in contact with both a solid substrate and a passive isotropic fluid, and explore its dynamics in one and two dimensions using a combination of hybrid Lattice Boltzmann simulations and…

We report new dynamical modes in confined soft granular flows, such as stochastic jetting and dripping, with no counterpart in continuum viscous fluids. The new modes emerge as a result of the propagation of the chaotic behaviour of…

We use linear stability analysis to show that an isotropic phase of elongated particles with dipolar flow fields can develop nematic order as a result of their activity. We argue that ordering is favoured if the particles are flow-aligning…

We investigate the collective dynamics of self-propelled droplets, confined in a one dimensional micro-fluidic channel. On one hand, neighboring droplets align and form large trains of droplets moving in the same direction. On the other…

Solutions of long, flexible polymer molecules are complex fluids that simultaneously exhibit fluid-like and solid-like behaviour. When subjected to external flows, dilute polymer solutions develop elastic turbulence - a unique chaotic flow…

Flow networks are fundamental for understanding systems such as animal and plant vasculature or power distribution grids. These networks can encode, transmit, and transform information embodied in the spatial and temporal distribution of…

Topological defects play a central role in the physics of many materials, including magnets, superconductors and liquid crystals. In active fluids, defects become autonomous particles that spontaneously propel from internal active stresses…