Related papers: Activity pulses induce spontaneous flow reversals …
Despite much current interest in active matter, little is known about osmosis in active systems. Using molecular dynamics simulations, we investigate how active solutes perturb osmotic steady states. We find that solute activity increases…
We simulate the nonlocal Stokesian hydrodynamics of an elastic filament which is active due a permanent distribution of stresslets along its contour. A bending instability of an initially straight filament spontaneously breaks flow symmetry…
Cells and tissues change shape both to carry out their function and during pathology. In most cases, these deformations are driven from within the systems themselves. This is permitted by a range of molecular actors, such as active…
Recent experiments on active materials, such as dense bacterial suspensions and microtubule-kinesin motor mixtures, show a promising potential for achieving self-sustained flows. However, to develop active microfluidics it is necessary to…
Many swimming microorganisms, such as bacteria and sperm, use flexible flagella to move through viscoelastic media in their natural environments. In this paper we address the effects a viscoelastic fluid has on the motion and beating…
The dynamics of a membrane coupled to an active fluid on top of a substrate is considered theoretically. It is assumed that the director field of the active fluid has rotational symmetry in the membrane plane. This situation is likely to be…
We discuss the lateral dynamics of two active force dipoles, which interact with each other via hydrodynamic interactions in a thin fluid layer that is active and chiral. The fluid layer is modeled as a two-dimensional (2D) compressible…
Here we report on the viscosity of eukaryotic living cells as a function of the time, and on the application of stochastic models to analyze its temporal fluctuations. The viscoelastic properties of NIH/3T3 fibroblastic cells are…
Active particles, including swimming microorganisms, autophoretic colloids and droplets, are known to self-organize into ordered structures at fluid-solid boundaries. The entrainment of particles in the attractive parts of their spontaneous…
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…
Self-propulsion and navigation due to the sensing of environmental conditions - such as durotaxis and chemotaxis - are remarkable properties of biological cells that cannot be reproduced by single-component self-propelled particles. We…
The study of the interactions of living adherent cells with mechanically stable (visco)elastic materials enables understanding and exploiting physiological phenomena mediated by cell-extracellular communication. However, insight on the…
We use numerical simulations and linear stability analysis to study active nematic droplets, in the regime where the passive phase is isotropic. We show that activity leads to the emergence of nematic order and of spontaneous rotation in…
Non-reciprocal interactions fueled by local energy consumption can be found in biological and synthetic active matter at scales where viscoelastic forces are important. Such systems can be described by "odd" viscoelasticity, which assumes…
Topological defects in active polar fluids can organise spontaneous flows and influence macroscopic density patterns. Both of them play, for example, an important role during animal development. Yet the influence of density on active flows…
Animal morphogenesis often involves significant shape changes of epithelial tissue sheets. Great progress has been made in understanding the underlying cellular driving forces and their coordination through biomechanical feedback loops.…
In recent years the functionality of synthetic active microparticles has edged even closer to that of their biological counterparts. However, we still lack the understanding needed to recreate at the microscale key features of autonomous…
Continuum hydrodynamic models of active liquid crystals have been used to describe dynamic self-organising systems such as bacterial swarms and cytoskeletal gels. A key prediction of such models is the existence of self-stabilising kink…
The term active matter describes diverse systems, spanning macroscopic (e.g. shoals of fish and flocks of birds) to microscopic scales (e.g. migrating cells, motile bacteria and gels formed through the interaction of nanoscale molecular…
Active stresses, which are collectively generated by the motion of energy-consuming rod-like constituents, generate chaotic autonomous flows. Controlling active stresses in space and time is an essential prerequisite for controlling the…