Related papers: Epithelia are multiscale active liquid crystals
We propose a hemodynamic reduced-order model bridging macroscopic and meso-scopic blood flow circulation scales from arteries to capillaries. In silico tree like vascular geometries, mathematically described by graphs, are synthetically…
We examine the fluid phase behaviour of the binary mixture of hard superellipses using the scaled particle theory The superellipse is a general two dimensional convex object which can be tuned between circular and rectangular shapes…
The human tear film (TF) is thin multilayer fluid film that is critical for clear vision and ocular surface health. Its dynamics are strongly affected by a floating lipid layer and, in health, that layer slows evaporation and helps create a…
A fundamental question in biology is to understand how patterns and shapes emerge from the collective interplay of large numbers of cells. Cells forming two-dimensional epithelial tissues behave as active materials that undergo remodeling…
A rigorous theory of liquid-crystal transitions is developed starting from the Liouville equation. The starting point is an all-atom description and a set of order parameter field variables that are shown to evolve slowly via Newton's…
Bulk properties of ionic liquid crystals are investigated using density functional theory. The liquid crystal molecules are represented by ellipsoidal particles with charges located in their center or at their tails. Attractive interactions…
Surface-induced profiles of both nematic and smectic order parameters in a nematic liquid crystal, ranging from an orienting substrate to "infinity", were evaluated numerically on base of an extended Landau theory. In order to obtain a…
The field of active nematics has traditionally employed descriptions based on dipolar activity, with interactions that align along a single axis. However, it has been theoretically predicted that interactions with a substrate, prevalent in…
Liquid crystal elastomers are special cross-linked polymer materials combining the large elastic deformability of elastomers with the orientational orders of liquid crystals. This model exhibits markedly different phenomena than the liquid…
With computer simulations of the hard sphere model, we examine in detail the microscopic pathway connecting the metastable melt to the emergence of crystalline clusters. In particular we will show that the nucleation of the solid phase does…
Research on human skin anatomy reveals its complex multi-scale, multi-phase nature, with up to 70% of its composition being bounded and free water. Fluid movement plays a key role in the skin's mechanical and biological responses,…
We observe novel positional control of a colloidal particle in microchannel flow of a nematic liquid crystal. Lattice Boltzmann simulations show multiple equilibrium particle positions, the existence and position of which are tunable using…
We propose that extended orientational correlations can appear at the surface of supercooled heavy noble liquid metals, due to the same compressive forces that cause reconstruction of their crystal surfaces. Simulations for liquid Au show a…
A flux liquid can condense into a smectic crystal in a pure layered superconductor with the magnetic field oriented nearly parallel to the layers. Similar order can arise in low temperature $^4$He films with a highly anisotropic periodic…
We study the phase ordering colloids suspended in a thermotropic nematic liquid crystal below the clearing point Tni and the resulting aggregated structure. Small (150nm) PMMA particles are dispersed in a classical liquid crystal matrix,…
Nematic liquid crystals exhibit configurations in which the underlying ordering changes markedly on macroscopic length scales. Such structures include topological defects in the nematic phase and tactoids within nematic-isotropic…
The kinetic mechanisms underlying bottom-up assembly of colloidal particles have been widely investigated in efforts to control crystallization pathways and to direct growth into targeted superstructures for applications including photonic…
Locomotion is essential for living cells. It enables bacteria and algae to explore space for food, cancer to spread, and immune system to fight infections. Motile cells display trajectories of intriguing complexity, from regular (e.g.…
Spontaneous onset of a low temperature topologically ordered phase in a 2-dimensional (2D) lattice model of uniaxial liquid crystal (LC) was debated extensively pointing to a suspected underlying mechanism affecting the RG flow near the…
The shapes of epithelial tissues result from a complex interplay of contractile forces in the cytoskeleta of the cells in the tissue, and adhesion forces between them. A host of discrete, cell-based models describe these forces by assigning…