Related papers: Topological defects of integer charge in cell mono…

Stable array of point defects was generated in nematic liquid crystal. Point defects with topological charge of +1 and -1 (hedgehogs) were generated in vertically aligned liquid crystal cell. The hedgehogs were arranged in square or…

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…

The soil bacterium Myxococcus xanthus lives in densely packed groups that form dynamic three-dimensional patterns in response to environmental changes, such as droplet-like fruiting bodies during starvation. The development of these…

We study the ground state properties of classical Coulomb charges interacting with a 1/r potential moving on a plane but confined either by a circular hard wall boundary or by a harmonic potential. The charge density in the continuum limit…

Growing experimental evidence indicates that topological defects could serve as organizing centers in the morphogenesis of tissues. Here, we provide a quantitative explanation for this phenomenon, rooted in the buckling theory of deformable…

Living cells establish long-range orientational order through collective alignment, giving rise to topological defects whose functional relevance is increasingly recognized in tissue organization and morphogenesis. Engineered topographical…

Collectively moving cellular systems often contain a proportion of dead cells or non-motile genotypes. When mixed, nematically aligning motile and non-motile agents are known to segregate spontaneously. However, the role that topological…

Photonic modes exhibiting a polarization winding akin to a vortex possess an integer topological charge. Lasing with topological charge 1 or 2 can be realized in periodic lattices of up to six-fold rotational symmetry. Higher order charges…

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…

Cell extrusion is an essential mechanism for controlling cell density in epithelial tissues. Another essential element of epithelia is curvature, which is required to achieve complex shapes, like in the lung or intestine. Here we introduce…

Topological defects can be formed during inflation by phase transitions as well as by quantum nucleation. We study the effect of the expansion of the Universe on the internal structure of the defects. We look for stationary solutions to the…

Topological defects in systems with liquid-crystalline order are crucial in determining their large-scale properties. In active systems, they are known to have properties impossible at equilibrium: for example, $+1/2$ defects in…

This paper is dedicated to studying various aspects of topological defects, appearing in mean-field theory treatments of physical systems such as ultracold atomic gases and gauge field theories. We start by investigating topological charge…

Topological defects are crucial to the thermodynamics and structure of condensed matter systems. For instance, when incorporated into crystalline membranes like graphene, disclinations with positive and negative topological charge…

Biological cells can actively tune their intracellular architecture according to their overall shape. Here we explore the rheological implication of such coupling in a minimal model of a dense cellular material where each cell exerts an…

In two dimensional nematics, topological defects are point like singularities with both a charge and a phase. We study topological defects within curved nematic textures on the surface of a cylinder. This allows us to isolate the effect of…

Highly periodic structures are often said to convey the beauty of nature. However, most material properties are strongly influenced by the defects they contain. On the mesoscopic scale, molecular self-assembly exemplifies this interplay;…

Topological defects play a central role in the formation and organization of various biological systems. Historically, such nonequilibrium defects have been mainly studied in the context of homogeneous active nematics. Phase-separated…

We propose a general formalism to characterize orientational frustration of smectic liquid crystals in confinement by interpreting the emerging networks of grain boundaries as objects with a topological charge. In a formal idealization,…

Abundant in nature, colloids also find increasingly important applications in science and technology, ranging from direct probing of kinetics in crystals and glasses to fabrication of third-generation quantum-dot solar cells. Because…