Related papers: Spontaneous knotting of a flexible fiber in chaoti…
We make use of the 3D nature of knots and links to find savings in computational complexity when computing knot invariants such as the linking number and, in general, most finite type invariants. These savings are achieved in comparison…
Knots are entangled structures that cannot be untangled without a cut. Topological stability of knots is one of the many examples of their important properties that can be used in information storage and transfer. Knot dynamics is important…
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…
Fluidic transport in inverted T-shaped cavities with the flow entering through the top and exiting from the two bottom outlets experiences an interesting phenomenon that causes particles having density lower than that of the fluid medium to…
We consider the probability of knotting in equilateral random polygons in Euclidean 3-dimensional space, which model, for instance, random polymers. Results from an extensive Monte Carlo dataset of random polygons indicate a universal…
Active nematics in two dimensions stir themselves efficiently through internally generated chaotic flows, largely driven by motile $+1/2$ disclinations. We investigate how this tendency toward chaotic fluid stirring can, counterintuitively,…
The possible transport of fibers by fluid flow in fractures is investigated experimentally in transparent models using flexible polyester thread (mean diameter $280 \mu\mathrm{m}$) and Newtonian and shear thinning fluids. In the case of…
We construct the first explicit example of a simplicial 3-ball B_{15,66} that is not collapsible. It has only 15 vertices. We exhibit a second 3-ball B_{12,38} with 12 vertices that is collapsible and evasive, but not shellable. Finally, we…
We present a model for disordered 3D fiber networks to study their linear and nonlinear elasticity over a wide range of network densities and fiber lengths. In contrast to previous 2D models, these 3D networks with binary cross-links are…
Flow instabilities play important roles in a wide range of engineering, geophysical, and astrophysical flows, ranging from supernova explosion in crab nebula, formation of clouds in sky, waves on ocean, to inertial confinement fusion…
Knitted fabrics are metamaterials with remarkable mechanical properties, such as extreme deformability and multiple history-dependent rest shapes. This letter shows that those properties may stem from a continuous set of metastable states…
We investigate the wetting properties of the simplest element of an array of random fibers: two rigid fibers crossing with an inclination angle and in contact with a droplet of a perfectly wetting liquid. We show experimentally that the…
We consider the diffusive motion of a localized knot along a linear polymer chain. In particular, we derive the mean diffusion time of the knot before it escapes from the chain once it gets close to one of the chain ends. Self-reptation of…
Many environmental, energy, and industrial processes involve the flow of polymer solutions in three-dimensional (3D) porous media where fluid is confined to navigate through complex pore space geometries. As polymers are transported through…
At high Reynolds number, the interaction between two vortex tubes leads to intense velocity gradients, which are at the heart of fluid turbulence. This vorticity amplification comes about through two different instability mechanisms of the…
Viscoelastic fluids are a common subclass of rheologically complex materials that are encountered in diverse fields from biology to polymer processing. Often the flows of viscoelastic fluids are unstable in situations where ordinary…
Incompressible fluid equations are studied with UV cut-off and in periodic boundary conditions. Properties of the resulting ODEs holding uniformly in the cut-off are considered and, in particular, are conjectured to be equivalent to…
The ratio of volume to crossing number of a hyperbolic knot is known to be bounded above by the volume of a regular ideal octahedron, and a similar bound is conjectured for the knot determinant per crossing. We investigate a natural…
We study the role of connectivity on the linear and nonlinear elastic behavior of amorphous systems using a two-dimensional random network of harmonic springs as a model system. A natural characterization of these systems arises in terms of…
We investigate the effect of knot type on the properties of a ring polymer confined to a slit. For relatively wide slits, the more complex the knot, the more the force exerted by the polymer on the walls is decreased compared to an…