Related papers: Persistent fluid flows defined by active matter bo…
Biofilms are complex, self-organized consortia of microorganisms that produce a functional, protective matrix of biomolecules. Physically, the structure of a biofilm can be described as an entangled polymer network which grows and changes…
Controlling interfaces of phase separating fluid mixtures is key to creating diverse functional soft materials. Traditionally, this is accomplished with surface-modifying chemical agents. Using experiment and theory, we study how mechanical…
The cellular cytoskeleton is an active material, driven out of equilibrium by molecular motor proteins. It is not understood how the collective behaviors of cytoskeletal networks emerge from the properties of the network's constituent motor…
Cellular membranes are elastic lipid bilayers that contain a variety of proteins, including ion channels, receptors, and scaffolding proteins. These proteins are known to diffuse in the plane of the membrane and to influence the bending of…
Fiberboids are active filaments trapped at the interface of two phases, able of harnessing energy (and matter) fluxes across the interface in order to produce a rolling-like self-propulsion. We discuss several table-top examples and develop…
Active flows are central to mixing and transport across living systems. While Newtonian fluids remain laminar, diffusive and predictable at the microscale, living fluids like dense bacterial suspensions can exhibit highly chaotic flows like…
These lecture notes are designed to provide a brief introduction into the phenomenology of active matter and to present some of the analytical tools used to rationalize the emergent behavior of active systems. Such systems are made of…
The cytoskeleton is a model active matter system that controls diverse cellular processes from division to motility. While both active actomyosin dynamics and actin-microtubule interactions are key to the cytoskeleton's versatility and…
To study the impact of active systems on their surroundings, we introduce a model that couples an active nematic fluid to an isotropic substrate fluid via friction. We numerically show that as the active layer develops turbulence, the…
We develop a hydrodynamic description of self-generated electrolyte flow in capillaries whose bounding walls feature both non-uniform distributions of charge and non-uniform active ionic fluxes. The hydrodynamic velocity arising in such a…
Active fluids such as bacterial swarms, self-propelled colloids, and cell tissues can all display complex spatio-temporal vortices that are reminiscent of inertial turbulence. This emergent behavior despite the overdamped nature of these…
Active colloids are microscopic particles, which self-propel through viscous fluids by converting energy extracted from their environment into directed motion. We first explain how articial microswimmers move forward by generating…
Many active fluid systems encountered in biology are set in total geometric confinement. Cytoplasmic streaming in plant cells is a prominent and ubiquitous example, in which cargo-carrying molecular motors move along polymer filaments and…
Active droplets are artificial microswimmers built from a liquid dispersion by microfluidic tools and showing self-propelled motion. These systems hold particular interest for mimicking biological phenomena, such as some aspects of cell…
Active fluids operate by constantly dissipating energy at the particle level to perform a directed motion, yielding dynamics and phases without any equilibrium equivalent. The emerging behaviors have been studied extensively, yet…
We study theoretically the hydrodynamics of a fluid drop containing oriented filaments endowed with active contractile or extensile stresses and placed on a solid surface. The active stresses alter qualitatively the wetting properties of…
Molecular-motor generated active stresses drive the cytoskeleton away from equilibrium, endowing it with tunable mechanical properties that are essential for diverse functions such as cell division and motility[1-5]. Designing analogous…
Inspired by recent experiments of cells accumulating on anisotropic substrates, we study a two-dimensional, compressible, isotropic, active fluid in the presence of anisotropic friction. We find that regions of anisotropic friction that are…
The optical properties of liquid crystals serve as the basis for display, diagnostic, and sensing technologies. Such properties are generally controlled by relying on electric fields. In this work, we investigate the effects of microfluidic…
Being intrinsically nonequilibrium, active materials can potentially perform functions that would be thermodynamically forbidden in passive materials. However, active systems have diverse local attractors that correspond to distinct…