Related papers: Functionality of disorder in muscle mechanics
Understanding how stick-slip dynamics manifests in diverse physical conditions is a crucial topic in tribology. Although it has been extensively studied in simple frictional configurations, the characterization of stick-slip behavior in…
Macroscopic properties of suspensions, such as those composed of globular particles (e.g., colloidal or macromolecular), can be tuned by controlling the equilibrium aggregation of the particles. We examine how aggregation -- and, hence,…
We present an analytical description for the collective dynamics of oscillator ensembles with higher-order coupling encoded by simplicial structure, which serves as an illustrative and insightful paradigm for brain function and information…
The mechanosensitivity of cells, which determines how they are able to respond to mechanical signals received from their environment, is crucial for the functioning of all biological systems. In experiments, cells placed on cyclically…
It has been claimed that quasistatic granular materials, as well as nanoscale materials, exhibit departures from elasticity even at small loadings. It is demonstrated, using 2D and 3D models with interparticle harmonic interactions, that…
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…
Disordered systems like liquids, gels, glasses, or granular materials are not only ubiquitous in daily life and in industrial applications but they are also crucial for the mechanical stability of cells or the transport of chemical and…
Molecular dynamics simulations were employed to investigate the phase separation process of a two-dimensional active Brownian dumbbell model. We evaluated the time dependence of the typical size of the dense component using the scaling…
Two typical morphology of two-dimensional aggregates are considered: compact crystalline clusters and string-like non-compact conformations. Simulated trajectories of both types of aggregates are analysed with fine spatial resolution. While…
Living matter moves, deforms, and organizes itself. In cells this is made possible by networks of polymer filaments and crosslinking molecules that connect filaments to each other and that act as motors to do mechanical work on the network.…
Cracks, the major vehicle for material failure, tend to accelerate to high velocities in brittle materials. In three-dimensions, cracks generically undergo a micro-branching instability at about 40% of their sonic limiting velocity. Recent…
Buckling plays a critical role in the transport and dynamics of elastic microfilaments in Stokesian fluids. However, previous work has only considered filaments with homogeneous structural properties. Filament backbone stiffness can be…
Living cells dynamically modulate the local morphologies of their actin cytoskeletons to perform biological functions, including force transduction, intracellular transport, and cell division. A major challenge is to understand how diverse…
Single-molecule pulling experiments on unstructured proteins linked to neurodegenerative diseases have measured rupture forces comparable to those for stable folded proteins. To investigate the structural mechanisms of this unexpected force…
We present the general theory of Ising transitions in isotropic elastic media with vanishing thermal expansion. By constructing a minimal model with appropriate spin-lattice couplings, we show that in two dimensions near a continuous…
The behaviour of uniform elastically isotropic compressible systems in critical and tricritical points is described in field-theoretical terms. Renormalizationgroup equations are analyzed for the case of three-dimensional systems in a…
A structural element is designed and investigated, forming the basis for the development of an elastic multistable metamaterial. The leitmotif of the structural design is the implementation of a strut characterized by a bifurcation…
The rheology of biological cells is not only determined by their cytoskeletal networks, but also by the molecular motors that crosslink and contract them. Recently it has been found that the assemblies of myosin II molecular motors in…
Even the most regular stick-slip frictional sliding is always stochastic, with irregularity in both the intervals between slip events and the sizes of the associated stress drops. Applying small-amplitude oscillations to the shear force, we…
Muscles sense internally generated and externally applied forces, responding to these in a coordinated hierarchical manner at different time scales. The center of the basic unit of the muscle, the sarcomeric M-band, is perfectly placed to…