Related papers: Active nematic gels as active relaxing solids
We numerically study by lattice Boltzmann simulations the rheological properties of an active emulsion made of a suspension of an active polar gel embedded in an isotropic passive background. We find that the hexatic equilibrium…
When liquid-crystal elastomers are prepared without any alignment, disordered polydomain structures emerge as the materials are cooled into the nematic phase. These polydomain structures have been attributed to quenched disorder in the…
Point-like motile topological defects control the universal dynamics of diverse two-dimensional active nematics ranging from shaken granular rods to cellular monolayers. A comparable understanding in higher dimensions has yet to emerge. We…
We simulate an experiment in which a colloidal probe is pulled through an active nematic fluid. We find that the drag on the particle is non-Stokesian (not proportional to its radius). Strikingly, a large enough particle in contractile…
We analyze a model of mutually-propelled filaments suspended in a two-dimensional solvent. The system undergoes a mean-field isotropic-nematic transition for large enough filament concentrations and the nematic order parameter is allowed to…
We study theoretically the effects of confinement on active polar gels such as the actin network of eukaryotic cells. Using generalized hydrodynamics equations derived for active gels, we predict, in the case of quasi one-dimensional…
Active matter embraces systems that self-organize at different length and time scales, often exhibiting turbulent flows. Here, we use a quasi-two-dimensional nematically ordered layer of a protein-based active gel to experimentally…
Cell crawling crucially depends on the collective dynamics of the acto-myosin cytoskeleton. However, it remains an open question to what extent cell polarization and persistent motion depend on continuous regulatory mechanisms and…
We here present two simplified models aimed at describing the long-term, irregular behaviours observed in the rheological response of certain complex fluids, such as periodic oscillations or chaotic-like variations. Both models exploit the…
Active fluids exhibit spontaneous flows with complex spatiotemporal structure, which have been observed in bacterial suspensions, sperm cells, cytoskeletal suspensions, self-propelled colloids, and cell tissues. Despite occurring in the…
We investigate experimentally the dynamic phase transition of a two-dimensional active nematic layer interfaced with a passive liquid crystal. Under a temperature ramp that leads to the transition of the passive liquid into a highly…
Liquid crystals establish a nearly unique combination of thermodynamic, hydrodynamic, and topological behavior. This poses a challenge to their theoretical understanding and modeling. The arena where these effects come together is the…
Micropolar active matter requires for its kinematic description both positional and orientational degrees of freedom. Activity generates dynamic coupling between these kinematic variables that are absent in micropolar passive matter, such…
We study the dynamics of active nematic films on a substrate driven by active flows with or without the incompressible constraint.Through simulations and theoretical analysis, we show that arch patterns are stable in the compressible case,…
Nematic elastomers are rubbery solids which have liquid crystals incorporated into their polymer chains. These materials display many unusual mechanical properties, one such being the ability to form fine-scale microstructure. In this work,…
Probing dynamic and static correlation in glass-forming supercooled liquids has been a challenge for decades in spite of extensive research. Dynamic correlation which manifests itself as Dynamic Heterogeneity is ubiquitous in a vast variety…
We review the dynamical behavior of giant fluid vesicles in various types of external hydrodynamic flow. The interplay between stresses arising from membrane elasticity, hydrodynamic flows, and the ever present thermal fluctuations leads to…
We consider a continuum model describing the dynamic behavior of nematic liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs) and implement a numerical scheme to solve the governing equations. In the model, the Helmholtz free energy and Rayleigh dissipation…
We study the viscoelasticity of an active solution of polar biofilaments and motor proteins. Using a molecular model, we derive the constitutive equations for the stress tensor in the isotropic phase and in phases with liquid crystalline…
We consider active suspensions in the isotropic phase subjected to a shear flow. Using a set of extended hydrodynamic equations we derive a variety of {\em analytical} expressions for rheological quantities such as shear viscosity and…