Related papers: Active matter in a viscoelastic environment
Active matter, comprising many active agents interacting and moving in fluids or more complex environments, is a commonly occurring state of matter in biological and physical systems. By its very nature active matter systems exist in…
An amalgamate of nematic liquid crystals and active matter, referred to as living liquid crystals, is a promising self-healing material with futuristic applications for targeted delivery of information and micro-cargo. We provide a…
The understanding of dynamics and functioning of biological membranes and in particular of membrane embedded proteins is one of the most fundamental problems and challenges in modern biology and biophysics. In particular the impact of…
In the present work we simulate the basic two-dimensional dynamics of swarming E. coli bacteria on the surface of a moderately soft agar plate. Individual bacteria are modelled by self-propelled ridged bodies (agents), which interact with…
Motivated by results for the propagation of active-passive interfaces of bacterial Serratia marcescens swarms [Nat. Comm., 9, 5373 (2018)] we use a hydrodynamic multiphase model to investigate the propagation of interfaces of active…
Motility is a fundamental feature of living matter, encompassing single cells and collective behavior. Such living systems are characterized by non-conservativity of energy and a large diversity of spatio-temporal patterns. Thus,…
Microorganism motility often takes place within complex, viscoelastic fluid environments, e.g., sperm in cervicovaginal mucus and bacteria in biofilms. In such complex fluids, strains and stresses generated by the microorganism are stored…
Many biological systems consist of self-motile and passive agents both of which contribute to overall functionality. However, there are very few studies of the properties of such mixtures. Here we formulate a model for mixtures of…
The study of systems with sustained energy uptake and dissipation at the scale of the constituent particles is an area of central interest in nonequilibrium statistical physics. Identifying such systems as a distinct category -- Active…
Partitioning of (bio)materials in polymeric mixtures is a key phenomenon both in cellular environments, as well as in industrial applications. In cells, several macromolecules are suspended within different biomolecular phases. On the other…
Eukaryote cells have a flexible shape, which dynamically changes according to the function performed by the cell. One mechanism for deforming the cell membrane into the desired shape is through the expression of curved membrane proteins.…
Eukaryotic cells adhere to extracellular matrix during the normal development of the organism, forming static adhesion as well as during cell motility. We study this process by considering a simplified coarse-grained model of a vesicle that…
Biological active materials such as bacterial biofilms and eukaryotic cells thrive in confined micro-spaces. Here, we show through numerical simulations that confinement can serve as a mechanical guidance to achieve distinct modes of…
In amorphous solids as in tissues, neighbor exchanges can relax local stresses and allow the material to flow. In this paper, we use an anisotropic vertex model to study T1 rearrangements in polygonal cellular networks. We consider two…
We employ computer simulations to study the dynamics of a self-propelled spherical tracer particle in a viscoelastic medium, made of a long polymer chain. Here, the interplay between viscoelasticity, stickiness, and activity…
Efficient nutrient mixing is crucial for the survival of bacterial colonies and other living systems. This raises the question of whether the optimization of mixing through the emergence of active turbulent motion in bacterial swarms played…
Bacterial biofilms, surface-attached communities of cells, are in some respects similar to colloidal solids; both are densely packed with non-zero yield stresses. However, unlike non-living materials, bacteria reproduce and die, breaking…
The habitat of microorganisms is typically complex and viscoelastic. A natural question arises: Do polymers in a suspension of active swimmers enhance chaotic motion or promote orientational order? We address this issue by performing…
Interaction of electric fields with biological cells is indispensable for many physiological processes. Thermal electrical noise in the cellular environment has long been considered as the minimum threshold for detection of electrical…
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…