Related papers: Defect unbinding in active nematics
We study emergent dynamics in a viscous drop subject to interfacial nematic activity. Using hydrodynamic simulations, we show how the interplay of nematodynamics, activity-driven flows and surface deformations gives rise to a sequence of…
We study the temporal behavior of topological quantum fluids with strong long-range couplings under slow external perturbations, whose rate $\delta$ approaches the quasi-static limit $\delta\to 0$. As expected, due to strong long-range…
Topological defects are a conspicuous feature of active liquid crystals that have been associated with important morphogenetic transitions in organismal development. Robust development thus requires a tight control of the motion and…
Systems containing active components are intrinsically out of equilibrium, while binary mixtures reach their equilibrium configuration when complete phase separation is achieved. Active particles are found to stabilise non-equilibrium…
We analyse how simple local constraints in two dimensions lead a defect to exhibit robust, non-transient, and tunable, subdiffusion. We uncover a rich dynamical phenomenology realised in ice- and dimer-type models. On the microscopic scale…
When a nematic liquid crystal is confined in a porous medium with strong anchoring conditions, topological defects, called disclinations, are stably formed with numerous possible configurations. Since the energy barriers between them are…
In nature interactions between biopolymers and motor proteins give rise to biologically essential emergent behaviours. Besides cytoskeleton mechanics, active nematics arise from such interactions. Here we present a study on 3D active…
Active systems, from bacterial suspensions to cellular monolayers, are continuously driven out of equilibrium by local injection of energy from their constituent elements and exhibit turbulent-like and chaotic patterns. Here we demonstrate…
We use molecular dynamics to study the ordering of a nematic liquid crystal around a spherical particle or droplet. Homeotropic boundary conditions and strong anchoring create a hedgehog director configuration on the particle surface and in…
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…
Collective cell migration governs a range of physiological and pathological processes, from tissue morphogenesis to cancer invasion, in which topological defects arise as an inevitable consequence of frequent cellular rearrangement and…
Two-dimensional simulations of the coarsening process of the isotropic/smectic-A phase transition are presented using a high-order Landau-de Gennes type free energy model. Defect annihilation laws for smectic disclinations, elementary…
Here we numerically study a model of excitable media, namely, a network with occasionally quiet nodes and connection weights that vary with activity on a short-time scale. Even in the absence of stimuli, this exhibits unstable dynamics,…
Recent numerical studies have identified the persistence time of active motion as a critical parameter governing glassy dynamics in dense active matter. Here we studied dynamics in liquids of granular active ellipsoids with tunable…
The presence and significance of active topological defects is increasingly realised in diverse biological and biomimetic systems. We introduce a continuum model of polar active matter, based on conservation laws and symmetry arguments,…
In this paper we rigorously investigate the emergence of defects on Nematic Shells with genus different from one. This phenomenon is related to a non trivial interplay between the topology of the shell and the alignment of the director…
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…
Two-dimensional (2D) materials display nanoscale dynamic ripples that significantly impact their properties. Defects within the crystal lattice are the elementary building blocks to tailor the material's morphology. While some studies have…
Self-propelled particles accumulate on repulsive barriers in so-called active wetting, but the relationship between this process and equilibrium wetting remains unclear. Using an exact (noiseless) hydrodynamic framework for an active…
We study the active flow around isolated defects and the self-propulsion velocity of $+1/2$ defects in an active nematic film with both viscous dissipation (with viscosity $\eta$) and frictional damping $\Gamma$ with a substrate. The…