Related papers: Physics of Active Emulsions
Controlling interfaces of phase separating fluid mixtures is key to creating diverse functional soft materials. Traditionally, this is accomplished with surface-modifying chemical agents. Using experiment and theory, we study how mechanical…
Active particles, including swimming microorganisms, autophoretic colloids and droplets, are known to self-organize into ordered structures at fluid-solid boundaries. The entrainment of particles in the attractive parts of their spontaneous…
Phase separation and transitions among different molecular states are ubiquitous in living cells. Such transitions can be governed by local equilibrium thermodynamics or by active processes controlled by biological fuel. It remains largely…
Active particles under soft confinement such as droplets or vesicles present intriguing phenomena, as collective motion emerges alongside the deformation of the environment. A model is employed to systematically investigate droplet…
The aim of this paper is to discuss the mathematical modeling of Brownian active particle systems, a recently popular paradigmatic system for self-propelled particles. We present four microscopic models with different types of repulsive…
In living cells, cycles of formation and dissolution of liquid droplets can mediate biological functions such as DNA repair. However, the minimal physicochemical prerequisite for such droplet oscillations remains elusive. Here, we present a…
Binary fluid mixtures are examples of complex fluids whose microstructure and flow are strongly coupled. For pairs of simple fluids, the microstructure consists of droplets or bicontinuous demixed domains and the physics is controlled by…
Because of consuming energy to drive their motion, systems of active colloids are intrinsically out of equilibrium. In the past decade, a variety of intriguing dynamic patterns have been observed in systems of active colloids, and they…
Phase separation in passive systems leads to uncontrolled droplet growth, limiting structural control in soft materials and cells. We identify a generic mechanism to arrest coarsening based on chemical interconversion between molecular…
Active matter is not only indispensable to our understanding of diverse biological processes, but also provides a fertile ground for discovering novel physics. Many emergent properties impossible for equilibrium systems have been…
A driven diffusive model of three types of particles that exhibits phase separation on a ring is introduced. The dynamics is local and comprises nearest neighbor exchanges that conserve each of the three species. For the case in which the…
The term active matter describes diverse systems, spanning macroscopic (e.g. shoals of fish and flocks of birds) to microscopic scales (e.g. migrating cells, motile bacteria and gels formed through the interaction of nanoscale molecular…
The field of active matter, and particularly active emulsions, is growing rapidly, with significant progress made recently on both theoretical and experimental fronts. Here, we summarize experimental research progress related to active…
Microphase separation is common in active biological systems as exemplified by the separation of RNA and DNA-rich phases in the cell nucleus driven by the transcriptional activity of polymerase enzymes acting similarly to amphiphiles in a…
Recent experimental realizations of liquid-liquid phase separation of active liquid crystals have offered an insight into the interaction between phase separation, ubiquitous in soft matter and biology, and chaotic active flows. In this…
Droplets form a cornerstone of the spatiotemporal organization of biomolecules in cells. These droplets are controlled using physical processes like chemical reactions and imposed gradients, which are costly to simulate using traditional…
These lecture notes are designed to provide a brief introduction into the phenomenology of active matter and to present some of the analytical tools used to rationalize the emergent behavior of active systems. Such systems are made of…
Wetting of liquid droplets on passive surfaces is ubiquitous in our daily lives, and the governing physical laws are well-understood. When surfaces become active, however, the governing laws of wetting remain elusive. Here we propose…
Biomolecular condensates are small droplets forming spontaneously in biological cells via phase separation. They play a role in many cellular processes, but it is unclear how cells control them. Cellular regulation often relies on…
Phase separation, crucial for spatially segregating biomolecules in cells, is well-understood in the simple case of a few components with pairwise interactions. Yet, biological cells challenge the simple picture in at least two ways: First,…