Related papers: Selective and Collective Actuation in Active Solid…
We study the collective dynamics of self-propelled rods in an inhomogeneous motility field. At the interface between two regions of constant but different motility, a smectic rod layer is spontaneously created through aligning interactions…
We study the spontaneous motion, binary collisions, and collective dynamics of "polar disks", i.e. purpose-built particles which, when vibrated between two horizontal plates, move coherently along a direction strongly correlated to their…
There are rich emergent phase behaviors in non-equilibrium active systems. Flocking and clustering are two representative dynamic phases. The relationship between these two phases is still unclear. In the paper, we numerically investigate…
Biological networks of interacting agents exhibit similar topological properties for a wide range of scales, from cellular to ecological levels, suggesting the existence of a common evolutionary origin. A general evolutionary mechanism…
Viewed under a fluorescence microscope, the actomyosin cytoskeleton presents vivid streaks of lines together with persistent oscillatory waves. Using an active hydrodynamic approach, we show how a uniform distribution of single or mixture…
We provide a minimal model for an active nematic film in contact with both a solid substrate and a passive isotropic fluid, and explore its dynamics in one and two dimensions using a combination of hybrid Lattice Boltzmann simulations and…
The living cell expends energetic and material resources to reliably process information from its environment. To do so, it utilises unreliable molecular circuitry that is subject to thermal and other fluctuations. Here, we argue that…
Active materials are capable of converting free energy into mechanical work to produce autonomous motion, and exhibit striking collective dynamics that biology relies on for essential functions. Controlling those dynamics and transport in…
Materials made from active, living, or robotic components can display emergent properties arising from local sensing and computation. Here, we realize a freestanding active metabeam with piezoelectric elements and electronic feed-forward…
Remarkably, even under negligible inertia, the addition of microstructural agents can generate chaotic flow fields. Such behavior can arise in polymer solutions, leading to elastic turbulence, or from active, self-driven particles, which…
The study of active solids offers a window into the mechanics and thermodynamics of dense living matter. A key aspect of the non-equilibrium dynamics of such active systems is a mechanistic description of how the underlying mechano-chemical…
Complex interactions between cellular systems and their surrounding extracellular matrices are emerging as important mechanical regulators of cell functions such as proliferation, motility, and cell death, and such cellular systems are…
We analyse a generic motility model, with the motility mechanism arising by contractile stress due to the interaction of myosin and actin. A hydrodynamic active polar gel theory is used to model the cytoplasm of a cell and is combined with…
How thousands of microtubules and molecular motors self-organize into spindles remains poorly understood. By combining static, nanometer-resolution, large-scale electron tomography reconstructions and dynamic, optical-resolution, polarized…
We study numerically the behaviour of a mixture of a passive isotropic fluid and an active polar gel, in the presence of a surfactant favouring emulsification. Focussing on parameters for which the underlying free energy favours the…
Autonomous oscillations in biological systems may have a biochemical origin or result from an interplay between force-generating and visco-elastic elements. In molecular motor assemblies the force-generating elements are molecular engines…
The experimental use of micropatterned quasi-1D substrates has emerged as an useful experimental tool to study the nature of cell-cell interactions and gain insight on collective behaviour of cell colonies. Inspired by these experiments, we…
The symmetry breaking of the actin network from radial to longitudinal symmetry has been identified as the major mechanism for keratocytes (fish cells) motility on solid substrate. For strong friction coefficient, the two dimensional actin…
Substrate-based cell motility is essential for fundamental biological processes, such as tissue growth, wound healing and immune response. Even if a comprehensive understanding of this motility mode remains elusive, progress has been…
We propose a model of collective behavior in self-propelled active agents that incorporates a perceptual decision-making process. In this framework, the decision-making dynamics is modeled using quantum formalism. The perceptual decision…