Related papers: Active matter in a viscoelastic environment
Active matter is a new class of material, intrinsically out-of equilibrium with intriguing properties. So far, the recent upsurge of studies has mostly focused on the spontaneous behavior of these systems --in the absence of external…
Active matter has played a pivotal role in advancing our understanding of non-equilibrium systems, leading to a fundamental shift in the study of biophysical phenomena. The foundation of active matter research is built on assumptions…
While the dynamics of polymer chains in equilibrium media is well understood by now, the polymer dynamics in active non-equilibrium environments can be very different. Here we study the dynamics of polymers in a viscous medium containing…
Active fluctuations are known to play a significant role in the intracellular transport of passive objects. However, the effect of viscoelasticity of the environment in shaping such processes is relatively less understood. Here, with a…
It is frequent for active or living entities to find themselves embedded in a surrounding medium. Resulting composite systems are usually classified as either active fluids or active solids. Yet, in reality, particularly in the biological…
The structure and dynamics of important biological quasi-two-dimensional systems, ranging from cytoskeletal gels to tissues, are controlled by nematic order, flow, defects and activity. Continuum hydrodynamic descriptions combined with…
We study a mixture of extensile and contractile cells using a vertex model extended to include active nematic stresses. The two cell populations phase separate over time. While phase separation strengthens monotonically with an increasing…
Active matter embraces systems that self-organize at different length and time scales, often exhibiting turbulent flows. Here, we use a quasi-two-dimensional nematically ordered layer of a protein-based active gel to experimentally…
Live cells have ambiguous mechanical properties. They were often described as either elastic solids or viscoelastic fluids and have recently been classified as soft glassy materials characterized by weak power-law rheology. Nonlinear…
A nonlinear dynamical system model that approximates a microscopic Gibbs field model for the yielding of a viscoplastic material subjected to varying external stress recently reported in [1] is presented. The predictions of the model are in…
Active stresses in biological cells and tissues drive many developmental processes. However, increasing experimental evidence suggests that additional mechanical interactions with surrounding material can play a crucial role in guiding…
Polymers are a primary building block in many biomaterials, often interacting with anisotropic backgrounds. While previous studies have considered polymer dynamics within nematic solvents, rarely are the the effects of anisotropic viscosity…
Biomolecular condensates form by phase separation of biological polymers and have important functions in the cell $-$ functions that are inherently connected to their physical properties. A remarkable aspect of such condensates is that…
Recent experiments reveal both passive subdiffusion of various nanoparticles and anomalous active transport of such particles by molecular motors in the molecularly crowded environment of living biological cells. Passive and active…
The eukaryotic cell nucleus harbors the DNA genome that is organized in a dynamic chromatin network and embedded in a viscous crowded fluid. This environment directly affects enzymatic reactions and target search processes that access the…
Active materials are those in which individual, uncoordinated local stresses drive the material out of equilibrium on a global scale. Examples of such assemblies can be seen across scales from schools of fish to the cellular cytoskeleton…
We review recent work on active colloids or swimmers, such as self-propelled microorganisms, phoretic colloidal particles, and artificial micro-robotic systems, moving in fluid-like environments. These environments can be water-like and…
We numerically investigate how spatial variations of extensile or contractile active stress affect bulk active nematic systems in two and three dimensions. In the absence of defects, activity gradients drive flows which re-orient the…
In this work, we compare the structural and dynamic behavior of active filaments in two dimensions using tangential and push-pull models, including a variant with passive end monomers. These models serve as valuable frameworks for…
Flocks of birds, schools of fish, mixtures of motors and cytoskeletal filaments, swimming bacteria and driven granular media are systems of interacting motile units that exhibit collective behaviour. These can all be described as active…