Related papers: Selective and Collective Actuation in Active Solid…

Over the past few decades, the research community has been interested in the study of multi-agent systems and their emerging collective dynamics. These systems are all around us in nature, like bacterial colonies, fish schools, bird flocks,…

Activity and autonomous motion are fundamental aspects of many living and engineering systems. Here, the scale of biological agents covers a wide range, from nanomotors, cytoskeleton, and cells, to insects, fish, birds, and people. Inspired…

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…

Thanks to a constant energy input, active matter can self-assemble into phases with complex architectures and functionalities such as living clusters that dynamically form, reshape and break-up, which are forbidden in equilibrium materials…

Using numerical simulations, we characterized the behavior of an elastic membrane immersed in an active fluid. Our findings reveal a nontrivial folding and re-expansion of the membrane that is controlled by the interplay of its resistance…

We study the emerging collective states in a simple mechanical model of a dense group of self-propelled polar disks with off-centered rotation, confined within a circular arena. Each disk presents self-alignment towards the sum of contact…

Biological systems exhibit large-scale self-organized dynamics and structures which enable organisms to perform the functions of life. The field of active matter strives to develop and understand microscopically-driven nonequilibrium…

Bacteria can spontaneously develop collective motions by aligning their motions in dense systems. Here, we show that bacteria can also respond collectively to an alternating electrical field and form dynamic clusters oscillating at the same…

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…

Inspired by motile cells in tissue formation, we find that active systems of self-aligning adhesive particles undergo ballistic aggregation through a flocking transition. This kinetic regime emerges when the cluster persistence length grows…

Coherent vortical motion has been reported in a wide variety of populations including living organisms (bacteria, fishes, human crowds) and synthetic active matter (shaken grains, mixtures of biopolymers), yet a unified description of the…

Anchorage-dependent cells collect information on the mechanical properties of the environment through their contractile machineries and use this information to position and orient themselves. Since the probing process is anisotropic,…

Active matter agents consume internal energy or extract energy from the environment for locomotion and force generation. Already rather generic models, such as ensembles of active Brownian particles, exhibit phenomena, which are absent at…

Cells accomplish diverse functions using the same molecular building blocks, from setting up cytoplasmic flows to generating mechanical forces. In particular, transitions between these non-equilibrium states are triggered by regulating the…

We analyse collective motion that occurs during rare (large deviation) events in systems of active particles, both numerically and analytically. We discuss the associated dynamical phase transition to collective motion, which occurs when…

Active matter consists of self-propelled elements exhibits fascinating collective motions ranging from biological to artificial systems. Among wide varieties of active matter systems, reconstituted bio-filaments moving on molecular motor…

Active matter systems encompass both natural and artificially created systems consisting of numerous active particles. These particles actively consume energy to propel themselves or exert mechanical forces, leading to intricate behaviors…

The mechanics of cells is strongly affected by molecular motors that generate forces in the cellular cytoskeleton. We develop a model for cytoskeletal networks driven out of equilibrium by molecular motors exerting transient contractile…

In living cells, cycles of formation and dissolution of liquid droplets can mediate biological functions such as DNA repair. However, the minimal physicochemical prerequisite for such droplet oscillations remains elusive. Here, we present a…

Electrostatic actuators are simple but important switching devices for MEMS applications. Due to the difficulties associated with the electrostatic nonlinearity, precise mathematical description is often hard to obtain for the dynamics of…