Related papers: Morphodynamics of Active Nematic Fluid Surfaces
We numerically study the effect of an active turbulent environment on a passive deformable droplet. The system is simulated using coupled hydrodynamic and nematodynamic equations for nematic liquid crystals with an active stress which is…
Living systems are chiral on multiple scales, from constituent biopolymers to large scale morphology, and their active mechanics is both driven by chiral components and serves to generate chiral morphologies. We describe the mechanics of…
Instabilities of fluid-fluid interfaces are ubiquitous in passive soft matter. Adding activity to the interface or either fluid can dramatically change the stability of the interface. Using experiment and theory, we investigate the…
We present a hydrodynamic model for a thin spherical shell of active nematic liquid crystal with an arbitrary configuration of defects. The active flows generated by defects in the director lead to the formation of stable vortices,…
Motivated by the motion of biopolymers and membranes in solution, this article presents a formulation of the equations of motion for curves and surfaces in a viscous fluid. We focus on geometrical aspects and simple variational methods for…
Active fluids display spontaneous turbulent-like flows known as active turbulence. Recent work revealed that these flows have universal features, independent of the material properties and of the presence of topological defects. However,…
Many vesicles have a spherical resting shape and exposure to fluid flows induces an exchange between sub-optical area and visible (systematic) deformation, while the total area is conserved. The dynamics which controls the exchange between…
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…
Understanding what happens inside the rippling and dancing surface of a liquid remains one of the great challenges of fluid dynamics. Using molecular dynamics (MD) we can pick apart the interface structure and understand surface tension. In…
In active nematic liquid crystals activity is able to drive chaotic spatiotemporal flows referred to as active turbulence. Active turbulence has been characterized through theoretical and experimental work as a low Reynolds number…
We study the spatiotemporal patterns that emerge when an active nematic film is topologically constraint. These topological constraints allow to control the non-equilibrium dynamics of the active system. We consider ellipsoidal shapes for…
Engineering synthetic materials that mimic the remarkable complexity of living organisms is a fundamental challenge in science and technology. We study the spatiotemporal patterns that emerge when an active nematicfilm of microtubules and…
Recent advances in cell biology and experimental techniques using reconstituted cell extracts have generated significant interest in understanding how geometry and topology influence active fluid dynamics. In this work, we present a…
Active nematic fluids confined in narrow channels generate spontaneous flows when the activity is sufficiently intense. Recently, it was shown that if the molecular anchoring at the channel walls is conflicting flows are initiated even in…
Topological defects play a prominent role in the physics of two-dimensional materials. When driven out of equilibrium in active nematics, disclinations can acquire spontaneous self-propulsion and drive self-sustained flows upon…
We study the dynamics of active nematic films on a substrate driven by active flows with or without the incompressible constraint.Through simulations and theoretical analysis, we show that arch patterns are stable in the compressible case,…
We describe channel flows in a continuum model of deformable nematic particles. In a simple shear flow, deformability leads to a nonlinear coupling of strain rate and vorticity, and results in shape oscillations or flow alignment. The final…
Topological defects in active liquid crystals can be confined by introducing gradients of activity. Here, we examine the dynamical behavior of two defects confined by a sharp gradient of activity that separates an active circular region and…
Biological surfaces, such as developing epithelial tissues, exhibit in-plane polar or nematic order and can be strongly curved. Recently, integer (+1) topological defects have been identified as morphogenetic hotspots in living systems.…
Starting from a three-dimensional description of an active nematic layer, we employ an asymptotic theory to derive a series of low-dimensional continuum models that capture the coupled dynamics of flat and curved films, including variations…