Related papers: Geometry-driven collective ordering of bacterial v…
In nature, microorganisms must often cope with hostile environmental conditions. To do so they have developed sophisticated cooperative behavior and intricate communication capabilities, such as: direct cell-cell physical interactions via…
The field of active matter explores the behaviors of self propelled agents out of equilibrium, with active suspensions, such as swimming bacteria in solutions, serving as impactful models. These systems exhibit spatio-temporal patterns akin…
We study colonies of non-motile, rod-shaped bacteria growing on solid substrates. In our model, bacteria interact purely mechanically, by pushing each other away as they grow, and consume a diffusing nutrient. We show that mechanical…
Active matter comprised of self-propelled interacting units holds a major promise for extraction of useful work from its seemingly chaotic out-of-equilibrium dynamics. Streamlining active matter to produce work is especially important at…
Proliferation is a defining feature of life. Through growth, division, and death, living systems consume energy and inject mass, breaking conservation laws and driving collective phenomena from biofilm formation to embryonic development.…
Collective migration -- the directed, coordinated motion of many self-propelled agents -- is a fascinating emergent behavior exhibited by active matter that has key functional implications for biological systems. Extensive studies have…
Left-right axis specification establishes embryonic laterality through asymmetric signaling cascades originating at the cellular scale. We previously reported the presence of a directionality bias in confined pairs of endothelial (and…
The flocking of self-propelled particles in heterogeneous environments is relevant to both natural and artificial systems. The Vicsek model is a canonical choice to investigate such systems due to the minimal number of parameters required…
Hypothesis: Bacterial contamination of surfaces poses a major threat to public health. Designing effective antibacterial or self-cleaning surfaces requires understanding how bacteria-laden droplets interact with solid substrates and how…
This study investigates the use of global control strategies to enhance the directed migration of swarms of interacting self-propelled particles confined in a channel. Uncontrolled dynamics naturally leads to wall accumulation, clogging,…
The geometric control of bone tissue growth plays a significant role in bone remodelling, age-related bone loss, and tissue engineering. However, how exactly geometry influences the behaviour of bone-forming cells remains elusive. Geometry…
Bacterial contamination of biological conducts, catheters or water resources is a major threat to public health and can be amplified by the ability of bacteria to swim upstream. The mechanisms of this rheotaxis, the reorientation with…
We present an experimental study of the kinetics of orbitally-shaken macroscopic particles confined to a two-dimensional bounded domain. Discounting the forcing action of the external periodic actuation, the particles show translational…
A wide range of experimental systems including gliding, swarming and swimming bacteria, in-vitro motility assays as well as shaken granular media are commonly described as self-propelled rods. Large ensembles of those entities display a…
A system of three point vortices in an unbounded plane has a special family of self-similarly contracting or expanding solutions: during the motion, vortex triangle remains similar to the original one, while its area decreases (grows) at a…
We analyse collective motion that occurs during rare (large deviation) events in systems of active particles, both numerically and analytically. We discuss the associated dynamical phase transition to collective motion, which occurs when…
Spatial constraints such as rigid barriers affect the dynamics of cell populations, potentially altering the course of natural evolution. In this paper, we investigate the population genetics of Escherichia coli proliferating in…
We study dynamic self-organisation and order-disorder transitions in a two-dimensional system of self-propelled particles. Our model is a variation of the Vicsek model, where particles align the motion to their neighbours but repel each…
Mechanochemical patterns arising in the actomyosin cortex drive many cellular processes. Here we consider a hydrodynamic model for the actomyosin cortex of cells and study the sensitivity of the emergent patterns to both physical parameters…
We experimentally study the dynamics of active particles (APs) in a viscoelastic fluid under various geometrical constraints such as flat walls, spherical obstacles and cylindrical cavities. We observe that the main effect of the confined…