Related papers: Chemotactic self-caging in active emulsions
We study numerically the phases and dynamics of a dense collection of self-propelled particles with soft repulsive interactions in two dimensions. The model is motivated by recent in vitro experiments on confluent monolayers of migratory…
Chemically active colloids move by creating gradients in the composition of the surrounding solution and by exploiting the differences in their interactions with the various molecular species in solution. If such particles move near…
Natural active systems routinely reshape and reorganize their environments through sustained local interactions. Examples of decentralized collective construction are common in nature, e.g., many insects achieve large-scale constructions…
Active transport of biomolecular condensates and cell migration in collectives are fundamental to development, homeostasis, and processes such as cancer progression, wound healing, and infection response. Yet how these assemblies are…
Active emulsions can spontaneously form self-propelled droplets or phoretic micropumps. It has been predicted that the interaction with their self-generated chemical fields can lead to multistable higher-order flows and chemodynamic…
To survive in ever-changing environments, living organisms need to continuously combine the ongoing external inputs they receive, representing present conditions, with their dynamical internal state, which includes influences of past…
Mixtures of particles that interact through phoretic effects are known to aggregate if they belong to species that exhibit attractive self-interactions. We study self-organization in a model metabolic cycle composed of three species of…
Self-generated gradients have atttracted a lot of attention in the recent biological literature. It is considered as a robust strategy for a group of cells to find its way during a long journey. This note is intended to discuss various…
Colonies of bacteria grown on thin agar plate exhibit fractal patterns as a result of adaptation to their environments. The bacterial colony pattern formation is regulated crucially by chemotaxis, the movement of cells along a chemical…
Phase separation in passive systems leads to uncontrolled droplet growth, limiting structural control in soft materials and cells. We identify a generic mechanism to arrest coarsening based on chemical interconversion between molecular…
Collective motion is a phenomenon observed across length scales in nature, from bacterial swarming and tissue migration to the flocking of animals. The mechanisms underlying this behavior vary significantly depending on the biological…
Chemotaxis is typically modeled in the context of cellular motion towards a static, exogenous source of chemoattractant. Here, we propose a time-dependent mechanism of chemotaxis in which a self-propelled particle ({\it e.g.}, a cell)…
Droplets help organize cells by compartmentalizing biomolecules and by mediating mechanical interactions. When bridging two structures, such droplets generate capillary forces, which depend on surface properties and distance. While the…
Phase separation is the thermodynamic process that explains how droplets form in multicomponent fluids. These droplets can provide controlled compartments to localize chemical reactions, and reactions can also affect the droplets' dynamics.…
Emergent behavior in active systems is a complex byproduct of local, often pairwise, interactions. One such interaction is self-avoidance, which experimentally can arise as a response to self-generated environmental signals; such…
Self-propelled colloidal particles exhibit rich non-equilibrium phenomena and have promising applications in fields such as drug delivery and self-assembled active materials. Previous experimental and theoretical studies have shown that…
We consider flocking of self-propelling agents in two dimensions, each of which communicates with its neighbors within a limited vision cone. Also, the communication occurs with some delay. The communication among the agents are modeled by…
Living organisms rely on molecular networks, such as gene circuits and signaling pathways, for information processing and robust decision-making in crowded, noisy environments. Recent advances show that interacting biomolecules…
We investigate the collective motion of self-propelled agents in an environment filled with obstacles that are tethered to fixed positions via springs. The active particles are able to modify the environment by moving the obstacles through…
Group behavior has received much attention as a test case of self-organization. There has been much written in recent years to investigate interactions within groups of agents. These agents can be animals moving in an interactive way, such…