Related papers: Half-integer and full-integer topological defects …
Topological phases of matter can support fractionalized quasi-particles localized at topological defects. The current understanding of these exotic excitations, based on the celebrated bulk-defect correspondence, typically relies on crude…
Active nematics contain topological defects which under sufficient activity move, create and annihilate in a chaotic quasi-steady state, called active turbulence. However, understanding active defects under confinement is an open challenge,…
Topological defects play a prominent role in the physics of two-dimensional materials. When driven out of equilibrium in active nematics, disclinations can acquire spontaneous self-propulsion and drive self-sustained flows upon…
Polar patterns and topological defects are ubiquitous in active matter. In this paper, we study a paradigmatic polar active dumbbell system through numerical simulations, to clarify how polar patterns and defects emerge and shape evolution.…
Topological defects play a central role in the physics of many materials, including magnets, superconductors and liquid crystals. In active fluids, defects become autonomous particles that spontaneously propel from internal active stresses…
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…
We study a continuum model of an extensile active nematic to show that mesoscale turbulence develops in two stages: (i) ordered regions undergo an intrinsic hydrodynamic instability generating walls, lines of stong bend deformations, (ii)…
Topological defects are fundamental to the collective dynamics of non-equilibrium systems and in active matter, mediating spontaneous flows, dynamic self-organization, and emergent pattern formation. Here, we reveal critical states in…
Recent experimental observations have suggested that topological defects can facilitate the creation of sharp features in developing embryos. Whereas these observations echo established knowledge about the interplay between geometry and…
Topological defects in systems with liquid-crystalline order are crucial in determining their large-scale properties. In active systems, they are known to have properties impossible at equilibrium: for example, $+1/2$ defects in…
There is now growing evidence of the emergence and biological functionality of liquid crystal features, including nematic order and topological defects, in cellular tissues. However, how such features that intrinsically rely on particle…
Topology transcends boundaries that conventionally delineate physical, biological and engineering sciences. Our ability to mathematically describe topology, combined with our access to precision tracking and manipulation approaches, has…
Liquid crystals inevitably possess topological defect excitations generated through boundary conditions, applied fields or in quenches to the ordered phase. In equilibrium pairs of defects coarsen and annihilate as the uniform ground state…
Biological surfaces, such as developing epithelial tissues, exhibit in-plane polar or nematic order and can be strongly curved. Recently, integer (+1) topological defects have been identified as morphogenetic hotspots in living systems.…
We formulate the statistical dynamics of topological defects in the active nematic phase, formed in two dimensions by a collection of self-driven particles on a substrate. An important consequence of the non-equilibrium drive is the…
Chaotic transitions in inertial fluids typically proceed through a direct energy cascade from large to small scales. In contrast, active systems, composed of self propelled units, inject energy at microscopic scales and therefore exhibit an…
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,…
We show that hydrodynamic theories of polar active matter generically possess inhomogeneous traveling solutions. We introduce a unifying dynamical-system framework to establish the shape of these intrinsically nonlinear patterns, and show…
Cultured stem cells have become a standard platform not only for regenerative medicine and developmental biology but also for biophysical studies. Yet, the characterization of cultured stem cells at the level of morphology and macroscopic…
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…