Related papers: Fine Structure of Viral dsDNA Encapsidation
The hyperuniformity concept provides a unified means to classify all perfect crystals, perfect quasicrystals, and exotic amorphous states of matter according to their capacity to suppress large-scale density fluctuations. While the…
Many physical systems can be mapped onto solved or "solvable" models of magnetism. In this work, we have mapped the statistical mechanics of columnar phases of ideally helical rigid DNA -- subject to the earlier found unusual, frustrated…
Phase separation of sequence-disordered liquid crystalline polymers, a promising class of technological and biological relevance, is studied by field theory, and thermodynamic mechanisms responsible for orientational ordering observed in…
We investigate the phase ordering (pattern formation) of systems of two-dimensional core-shell particles using Monte-Carlo (MC) computer simulations and classical density functional theory (DFT). The particles interact via a pair potential…
The question of how stiff polymers are able to pack into small containers is particularly relevant to the study of DNA packaging in viruses. A reduced version of the problem based on coarse-grained representations of the main components of…
Sorting cells based on their intrinsic properties is a highly desirable objective, since changes in cell deformability are often associated with various stress conditions and diseases. Deterministic lateral displacement (DLD) devices offer…
Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) capsid proteins spontaneously assemble around the genome into a protective protein shell called the capsid, which can take on a variety of shapes broadly classified as conical, cylindrical and irregular.…
A liquid drop containing a long fiber is a complex system whose configuration is determined by an interplay of elastic stresses in the fiber and capillary forces due to the liquid. We study the morphological evolution of fibers that are…
We review the impact of tetrahedral order on the macroscopic dynamics of bent-core liquid crystals. We discuss tetrahedral order comparing with other types of orientational order, like nematic, polar nematic, polar smectic, and active polar…
A cascade of phase transitions from square to hexagonal lattice is studied in 2D system of particles interacting via core-softened potential. Due to the presence of two length-scales of repulsion, different local configurations with four,…
Colloidal Janus spheres in water (one hemisphere attractive and the other repulsive) assemble into two-dimensional hexagonal crystals with orientational order controlled by anisotropic interactions. We exploit the decoupled translational…
Viruses are known to tolerate wide ranges of pH and salt conditions and to withstand internal pressures as high as 100 atmospheres. In this paper we investigate the mechanical properties of viral capsids, calling explicit attention to the…
We study the kinetics of the nematic-isotropic transition in a two-dimensional liquid crystal by using a lattice Boltzmann scheme that couples the tensor order parameter and the flow consistently. Unlike in previous studies, we find the…
Simple RNA viruses efficiently encapsulate their genome into a nano-sized protein shell: the capsid. Spontaneous co-assembly of the genome and the capsid proteins is driven predominantly by electrostatic interactions between the negatively…
In this article we calculate the surface phase diagram of a two-dimensional hard-rod fluid confined between two hard lines. In a first stage we study the semi-infinite system consisting of an isotropic fluid in contact with a single hard…
We investigate the dynamical evolution of a thermodynamically unstable crystal surface into a hill-and-valley structure. We demonstrate that, for quasi one-dimensional ordering, the equation of motion maps exactly to the modified…
In order to replicate within their cellular host, many viruses have developed self-assembly strategies for their capsids which are sufficiently robust as to be reconstituted in vitro. Mathematical models for virus self-assembly usually…
We employ classical molecular dynamics simulations to investigate the molecular-level structure of water during the isothermal compression of hexagonal ice (I$h$) and low-density amorphous (LDA) ice at low temperatures. In both cases, the…
In columnar assemblies of helical bio-molecules the azimuthal degrees of freedom, i.e. rotations about the long axes of molecules, may be important in determining the structure of the assemblies especially when the interaction energy…
The cubic blue phases of liquid crystals are fascinating and technologically promising examples of hierarchically structured soft materials, comprising ordered networks of defect lines (disclinations) within a liquid crystalline matrix. We…