Related papers: Polar Fluctuations Lead to Extensile Nematic Behav…
Coherent oscillatory activity can arise spontaneously as a result of increased coupling in a system of excitable and passive cells, each being quiescent in isolation. This can potentially explain the appearance of spontaneous rhythmic…
Cell deformability is an essential determinant for tissue-scale mechanical nature, such as fluidity and rigidity, and is thus crucial for understanding tissue homeostasis and stable developmental processes. However, numerical simulations…
Fluctuations exist in any material object $A$. If $A$ has non-zero temperature $T$, one speaks about thermal fluctuations. If $A$ is at very low $T$, the fluctuations are of quantum origin. Interesting effects appear if two bodies $A$ and…
Building on the striking similarity between the structure of the spindle during mitosis in living cells and nematic textures in confined liquid crystals, we use a continuum model of two-dimensional nematic liquid crystal droplets, to…
Topological defects provide a unifying language to describe how orientational order breaks down in active and living matter. Considering cells as elongated particles confluent, epithelial tissues can be interpreted as nematic fields and its…
We connect the rare fluctuations of an Equilibrium (EQ) process and the typical fluctuations of a nonequilibrium (NE) stationary process. In the framework of large deviation theory, this observation allows us to introduce NE thermodynamic…
We study the necking of a filament of complex fluid or soft solid subject to uniaxial tensile stretching, under conditions of constant imposed stress and force, by means of linear stability analysis and nonlinear simulations. We demonstrate…
We investigate the self-propulsive motion of a drop containing an active polar field. The drop demonstrates spontaneous symmetry breaking from a uniform orientational order into a splay or bend instability depending on the types of active…
Using molecular dynamics (MD) simulations we study the interactions between elongated colloidal particles (length to breath ratio > 1) in a nematic host. The simulation results are compared to the results of a Landau-de Gennes elastic free…
Wetting phenomena, molecular protrusions of lipid bilayers and membrane stacks under lateral tension provide physical examples for interacting surfaces with tension. Such surfaces are studied theoretically using functional renormalization…
Evidence of small-scale condensations in the magnetic molecular clouds has been accumulating over the past decades through radio and optical/ultraviolet observations. The origin and shape of these small-scale condensations is a disputable…
We consider the hydrodynamic theory of an active fluid of self-propelled particles with nematic aligning interactions. This class of materials has polar symmetry at the microscopic level, but forms macrostates of nematic symmetry. We…
Fluctuation theorems are a generalization of thermodynamics on small scales and provide the tools to characterize the fluctuations of thermodynamic quantities in non-equilibrium nanoscale systems. They are particularly important for…
The ability to manipulate polar entities with multiple external fields opens exciting possibilities for emerging functionalities and novel applications in spin systems, photonics, metamaterials, and soft matter. Liquid crystals (LCs),…
We numerically investigate how spatial variations of extensile or contractile active stress affect bulk active nematic systems in two and three dimensions. In the absence of defects, activity gradients drive flows which re-orient the…
We numerically study by lattice Boltzmann simulations the rheological properties of an active emulsion made of a suspension of an active polar gel embedded in an isotropic passive background. We find that the hexatic equilibrium…
The glassy cytoplasm, crowded with bio-macromolecules, is fluidized in living cells by mechanical energy derived from metabolism. Characterizing the living cytoplasm as a non-equilibrium system is crucial in elucidating the intricate…
Active matter consumes energy from the environment and transforms it into mechanical work. Notable examples from biology include cell division, bacterial swarms, and muscle contraction. In this work, we investigate the nature of active…
Suspensions of swimming micro-organisms provide examples of coordinated active dynamics. That has stimulated the study of a phenomenological theory combining synchronization and polar order in active matter. Here, we consider another…
In vivo and in vitro systems of cells and extra-cellular matrix (ECM) systems are well known to form ordered patterns of orientationally aligned fibers. Here, we interpret them as active analogs of the (disordered) isotropic to the…