Related papers: Defect Line Coarsening and Refinement in Active Ne…
We describe a numerical investigation of a continuum model of an active nematic, concentrating on the regime of active turbulence. Results are presented for the effect of three parameters, activity, elastic constant and rotational diffusion…
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…
Using agent-based simulations of self-propelled particles subject to short-range repulsion and nematic alignment we explore the dynamical phases of a dense active material confined to the surface of a sphere. We map the dynamical phase…
Various active materials exhibit strong spatio-temporal variability of their orientational order known as active turbulence, characterised by irregular and chaotic motion of topological defects, including colloidal suspensions,…
The effects of an electric field on the flow patterns and defect dynamics of two-dimensional active nematics are numerically investigated. We found that field-induced director reorientation causes anisotropic active turbulence characterized…
The dynamics of active smectic liquid crystals confined on a spherical surface is explored through an active phase field crystal model. Starting from an initially randomly perturbed isotropic phase, several types of topological defects are…
We consider a phenomenological continuum theory for an extensile, overdamped active nematic liquid crystal, applicable in the dense regime. Constructed from general principles, the theory is universal, with parameters independent of any…
Topological defects are distinctive signatures of liquid crystals. They profoundly affect the viscoelastic behavior of the fluid by constraining the orientational structure in a way that inevitably requires global changes not achievable…
We report on the emergence of stable self-propelled bound defects in monolayers of active nematics, which form virtual full-integer topological defects in the form of vortices and asters. Through numerical simulations and analytical…
The persistent dynamics in systems out of equilibrium, particularly those characterized by annihilation and creation of topological defects, is known to involve complicated spatiotemporal processes and is deemed difficult to control. Here…
We develop an approximate, analytical model for the velocity of defects in active nematics by combining recent results for the velocity of topological defects in nematic liquid crystals with the flow field generated from individual defects…
We numerically investigate the morphology and disclination line dynamics of active nematic droplets in three dimensions. Although our model only incorporates the simplest possible form of achiral active stress, active nematic droplets…
The transition from complex-periodic to chaotic behavior is investigated in oscillatory media supporting spiral waves. We find turbulent regimes characterized by the spontaneous nucleation, proliferation and erratic motion of…
The growing interest in active nematics and the emerging evidence of the relevance of topological defects in biology asks for reliable data analysis tools to identify, classify and track such defects in simulation and microscopy data. We…
The study of liquid crystals at equilibrium has led to fundamental insights into the nature of ordered materials, as well as to practical applications such as display technologies. Active nematics are a fundamentally different class of…
Living materials at different length scales manifest active nematic features such as orientational order, nematic topological defects, and active nematic turbulence. Using numerical simulations we investigate the impact of fluid inertia on…
Active matter encompasses different nonequilibrium systems in which individual constituents convert energy into non-conservative forces or motion at the microscale. This review provides an elementary introduction to the role of topology in…
Coherent flows of self-propelled particles are characterized by vortices and jets that sustain chaotic flows, referred to as active turbulence. Here, we reveal a crossover between defect-free active turbulence and active turbulence laden…
Active nematics are fluids in which the components have nematic symmetry and are driven out of equilibrium due to the microscopic generation of an active stress. When the active stress is high, it drives flows in the nematic and can lead to…
Active fluids, such as cytoskeletal filaments, bacterial colonies and epithelial cell layers, exhibit distinctive orientational coherence, often characterized by nematic order and topological defects. By contrast, little is known about…