Related papers: Wrinkling instability in 3D active nematics
One of the defining features of active nematics is that above a critical activity the quiescent state becomes unstable to a distorted, flowing one. We show that spatial variations in activity can fundamentally change the nature of this…
Active matter systems such as eukaryotic cells and bacteria continuously transform chemical energy to motion. Hence living systems exert active stresses on the complex environments in which they reside. One recurring aspect of this…
Contractility in animal cells is often generated by molecular motors such as myosin, which require polar substrates for their function. Motivated by recent experimental evidence of motor-independent contractility, we propose a robust…
Pattern formation induced by wrinkling is a very common phenomenon exhibited in soft-matter substrates. In all these systems wrinkles develop in presence of compressively stressed thin films lying on compliant substrates. Here we…
We consider the dynamics of active nematics droplets on flat surfaces, based on the continuum hydrodynamic theory. We investigate a wide range of dynamical regimes as a function of the activity and droplet size on surfaces characterized by…
Active nematics are dense systems of rodlike particles that consume energy to drive motion at the level of the individual particles. They exist in natural systems like biological tissues and artificial materials such as suspensions of…
The alignment of fibers and cells in living tissues affect their mechanical properties and functionality. In this context, one can draw an analogy between tissues and nematic liquid crystal elastomers. We explore this analogy by growing…
We investigate the dynamics of active nematic liquid crystals on deformable membranes, focusing on the interplay between active stress and anisotropic curvature coupling. Using a minimal model, we simulate the coupled evolution of the…
In the presence of ATP, kinesin proceeds along the protofilament of microtubule by alternated binding of two motor domains on the tubulin binding sites. Since the processivity of kinesin is much higher than other motor proteins, it has been…
Experiments suggest that the migration of some cells in the three-dimensional extra cellular matrix bears strong resemblance to one-dimensional cell migration. Motivated by this observation, we construct and study a minimal one-dimensional…
Although turbulence has been conjectured to be important for magnetic reconnection, still very little is known about its role in collisionless plasmas. Previous attempts to quantify the effect of turbulence on reconnection usually…
We study theoretically the formation of long-wavelength instability patterns observed at spreading of nematic droplets on liquid substrates. The role of surface-like elastic terms such as saddle-splay and anchoring in nematic films of…
The initiation of directional cell motion requires symmetry breaking that can happen both with or without external stimuli. During cell crawling, forces generated by the cytoskeleton and their transmission through mechanosensitive adhesions…
The intermittent transition between slow growth and rapid shrinkage in polymeric assemblies is termed dynamic instability, a feature observed in a variety of biochemically distinct assemblies including microtubules, actin and their…
The kinesin superfamily of motor proteins is a major driver of anterograde transport of vesicles and organelles within eukaryotic cells via microtubules. Numerous studies have elucidated the step-size, velocities, forces, and navigation…
Entangled knots form spontaneously in flexible filaments, yet the influence of the surrounding environment on this process is poorly understood. Here we demonstrate that free-moving particles act as kinetic catalysts for spontaneous…
The emergence of long-range spatiotemporal order from intrinsic chaos is a central challenge in far-from-equilibrium physics. In active fluids, such as cytoskeletal networks driving cellular motion, self-generated flows typically produce…
The wrinkling of thin elastic objects provides a means of generating regular patterning at small scales in applications ranging from photovoltaics to microfluidic devices. Static wrinkle patterns are known to be governed by an energetic…
Active matter systems may be characterised by the conversion of energy into active motion, e.g. the self-propulsion of microorganisms. Artificial active colloids form models which exhibit essential properties of more complex biological…
Active turbulence is a paradigmatic and fascinating example of self-organized motion at large scales occurring in active matter. We employ massive hydrodynamic simulations of suspensions of resolved model microswimmers to tackle the…