Related papers: Geometry-driven collective ordering of bacterial v…
Synchronization plays a crucial role in the dynamics of living organisms, from fireflies flashing in unison to pacemaker cells that jointly generate heartbeats. Uncovering the mechanism behind these phenomena requires an understanding of…
Slicks are thin viscous films that can be found at the air--water interface of water bodies such as lakes, rivers and oceans. These micro-layers are enriched in surfactants, organic matter, and microorganisms, and exhibit steep physical and…
Bacteria are prolific at colonizing diverse surfaces under a widerange of environmental conditions, and exhibit fascinating examples of self-organization across scales. Though it has recently attracted considerable interest, the role of…
To model the morphogenesis of rod-shaped bacterial micro-colony, several individual-based models have been proposed in the biophysical literature. When studying the shape of micro-colonies, most models present interaction forces such as…
We study self-propelled particles with velocity reversal interacting by uniaxial (nematic) alignment within a coarse-grained hydrodynamic theory. Combining analytical and numerical continuation techniques, we show that the physics of this…
Swimmers and self-propelled particles are physical models for the collective behaviour and motility of a wide variety of living systems, such as bacteria colonies, bird flocks and fish schools. Such artificial active materials are amenable…
Understanding how bacteria move in porous media is critical to applications in healthcare, agriculture, environmental remediation, and chemical sensing. Recent work has demonstrated that E. coli, which moves by run-and-tumble dynamics in a…
There are many examples of driven and active matter systems containing particles that exhibit circular motion with different chiralities, such as swimming bacteria near surfaces or certain types of self-driven colloidal particles. Circular…
In active matter systems, self-propelled particles can self-organize to undergo collective motion, leading to persistent dynamical behavior out of equilibrium. In cells, cytoskeletal filaments and motor proteins self-organize into complex…
Multicellular self-organization drives development in biological organisms, yet a comprehensive theory is lacking as basic properties of cells can complicate common approaches. Framing such properties by dynamic graphs led to new…
Bacterial cellulose is an important class of biomaterials which can be grown in well-controlled laboratory and industrial conditions. The cellulose structure is affected by several biological, chemical and environmental factors, including…
Cellular membranes exhibit a large variety of shapes, strongly coupled to their function. Many biological processes involve dynamic reshaping of membranes, usually mediated by proteins. This interaction works both ways: while proteins…
Here we show that coupling to curvature has profound effects on collective motion in active systems, leading to patterns not observed in flat space. Biological examples of such active motion in curved environments are numerous: curvature…
Bacteria living on surfaces use different types of motility mechanisms to move on the surface in search of food or to form micro-colonies. Twitching is one such form of motility employed by bacteria such as N. gonorrhoeae, in which the…
The controllability of passive microparticles that are advected with the fluid flow generated by an actively controlled one is studied. The particles are assumed to be suspended in a viscous fluid and well separated so that the far-field…
Unraveling bacterial strategies for spatial exploration is crucial for understanding the complexity in the organization of life. Bacterial motility determines the spatio-temporal structure of microbial communities, controls infection…
In the presence of an obstacle, active particles condensate into a surface "wetting" layer due to persistent motion. If the obstacle is asymmetric, a rectification current arises in addition to wetting. Asymmetric geometries are therefore…
Escherichia coli and other bacteria use rotating helical filaments to swim. Each cell typically has about four filaments, which bundle or disperse depending on the sense of motor rotation. To study the bundling process, we built a…
We studied formation of vortex with four-fold symmetry in a minimal model of self-propelled particles, confined inside a squared box, using computer simulations and also theoretical analysis. In addition to the vortex pattern, we observed…
Following the goal of using active particles as targeted cargo carriers aimed, for example, to deliver drugs towards cancer cells, the quest for the control of individual active particles with external fields is among the most explored…