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Related papers: Topological active matter

200 papers

We propose an agent-based model of active flexible rods. Inspired by cytoskeletal flows, we introduce activity by an internal flow that contributes to the dissipative forces. The active force between our agents is central and reciprocal,…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2026-03-06 Mathieu Dedenon , Carles Blanch-Mercader , Karsten Kruse , Jens Elgeti

Active emulsions and liquid crystalline shells are intriguing and experimentally realisable types of topological matter. Here we numerically study the morphology and spatiotemporal dynamics of a double emulsion, where one or two passive…

Living materials such as membranes, cytoskeletal assemblies, cell collectives and tissues can often be described as active solids -- materials that are energized from within, with elastic response about a well defined reference…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2025-12-15 Yuan Zhou , Lazaros Tsaloukidis , Jack Binysh , Yuchao Chen , Nikta Fakhri , Corentin Coulais , Piotr Surówka

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…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2023-07-13 Timo Krüger , Ivan Maryshev , Erwin Frey

Topological defects in active liquid crystals can be confined by introducing gradients of activity. Here, we examine the dynamical behavior of two defects confined by a sharp gradient of activity that separates an active circular region and…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2021-06-16 Ali Mozaffari , Rui Zhang , Noe Atzin , Juan J. de Pablo

The topological properties of many materials are central to their behavior, with the dynamics of topological defects being particularly important to intrinsically out-of-equilibrium, active materials. In this paper, local manipulation of…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2019-11-01 David P. Rivas , Tyler N. Shendruk , Robert R. Henry , Daniel H. Reich , Robert L. Leheny

The self-propulsion of +1/2 topological defects is a hallmark of active nematic fluids, where the defects are advected by the flow field they themselves generate. In this paper we propose a minimal model for defect self-propulsion in a…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2025-08-08 Fridtjof Brauns , Myles O'Leary , Arthur Hernandez , Mark J. Bowick , M. Cristina Marchetti

Activity and autonomous motion are fundamental in living and engineering systems. This has stimulated the new field of active matter in recent years, which focuses on the physical aspects of propulsion mechanisms, and on motility-induced…

Topology, a mathematical concept, has recently become a popular and truly transdisciplinary topic encompassing condensed matter physics, solid state chemistry, and materials science. Since there is a direct connection between real space,…

Materials Science · Physics 2021-03-23 Nitesh Kumar , Satya N. Guin , Kaustuv Manna , Chandra Shekhar , Claudia Felser

Topological phases of matter are often understood and predicted with the help of crystal symmetries, although they don't rely on them to exist. In this chapter we review how topological phases have been recently shown to emerge in amorphous…

Disordered Systems and Neural Networks · Physics 2022-08-23 Adolfo G. Grushin

Active matter often simultaneously exhibits different kinds of orientational order and, in many cases of biological interest, undergoes continuous material renewal. In renewing nematopolar fluids we find stable topological strings,…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2026-01-27 Alberto Dinelli , Ludovic Dumoulin , Karsten Kruse

Topological photonics has emerged as a novel route to engineer the flow of light. Topologically-protected photonic edge modes, which are supported at the perimeters of topologically-nontrivial insulating bulk structures, have been of…

This work introduces a new theoretical model for active matter ("complementary-spins" or c-spins), exploring the interplay of positional and orientational order in mobile agents with rotational freedom, divided into two populations with…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2025-11-20 Alessandro Scirè

In contrast to conservative systems, in nonlinear media with gain and loss the dynamics of localized topological structures can exhibit unique features that can be controlled externally. We propose a robust mechanism to perform topological…

Pattern Formation and Solitons · Physics 2019-12-11 B. A. Kochetov , O. G. Chelpanova , V. R. Tuz , A. I. Yakimenko

One of the most significant breakthroughs in physics of the last decade has been the discovery that materials with non-trivial topological properties for electronic, electromagnetic, acoustic and mechanical responses can be designed and…

Optics · Physics 2022-11-21 Xiang Ni , Simon Yves , Alex Krasnok , Andrea Alu

Topological mechanical metamaterials are artificial structures whose unusual properties are protected very much like their electronic and optical counterparts. Here, we present an experimental and theoretical study of an active metamaterial…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2015-12-08 Lisa M. Nash , Dustin Kleckner , Alismari Read , Vincenzo Vitelli , Ari M. Turner , William T. M. Irvine

Topological phases of matter have sparked an immense amount of activity in recent decades. Topological materials are classified by topological invariants that act as a non-local order parameter for any symmetry and condition. As a result,…

Materials Science · Physics 2020-12-08 Oded Zilberberg

Non-equilibrium dynamics of topological defects can be used as a fundamental propulsion mechanism in microscopic active matter. Here, we demonstrate swimming of topological defect-propelled colloidal particles in (passive) nematic fluids…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2021-09-30 Tianyi Yao , Žiga Kos , Yimin Luo , Edward B. Steager , Miha Ravnik , Kathleen J. Stebe

In these Lecture Notes we aim at clarifying how soft matter physics, and herein notably statistical mechanics and fluid mechanics, can be engaged to understand and manipulate non-equilibrium systems consisting of numerous (microscopic)…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2025-05-27 Jean-François Joanny , Joseph O. Indekeu

Active fluids display spontaneous turbulent-like flows known as active turbulence. Recent work revealed that these flows have universal features, independent of the material properties and of the presence of topological defects. However,…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2026-03-19 Ido Lavi , Ricard Alert , Jean-François Joanny , Jaume Casademunt