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Related papers: Activity gradients in two- and three-dimensional a…

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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…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2022-08-10 Roozbeh Saghatchi , Mehmet Yildiz , Amin Doostmohammadi

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…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2024-06-12 Suraj Shankar , Luca V. D. Scharrer , Mark J. Bowick , M. Cristina Marchetti

Colloidal inclusions in nematic fluids induce topological defects that govern their dynamics. These defects create well-understood rheological behavior in passive nematics, but the interplay between colloid-associated defects and…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2025-03-26 Timofey Kozhukhov , Benjamin Loewe , Kristian Thijssen , Tyler N. Shendruk

We describe the flows and morphological dynamics of topological defect lines and loops in three-dimensional active nematics and show, using theory and numerical modelling, that they are governed by the local profile of the orientational…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2020-03-13 Jack Binysh , Žiga Kos , Simon Čopar , Miha Ravnik , Gareth P. Alexander

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…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2017-03-13 Francesco Alaimo , Christian Köhler , Axel Voigt

As a method for controlling active materials, researchers have suggested designing patterns of activity on a substrate, which should guide the motion of topological defects. To investigate this concept, we model the behavior of a single…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2021-02-10 Xingzhou Tang , Jonathan V. Selinger

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,…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2022-11-30 Supavit Pokawanvit , Zhitao Chen , Zhihong You , Luiza Angheluta , M. Cristina Marchetti , Mark J. Bowick

A wide range of living and artificial active matter exists in close contact with substrates and under strong confinement, where in addition to dipolar active stresses, quadrupolar active stresses can become important. Here, we numerically…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2024-04-23 Salik A. Sultan , Mehrana R. Nejad , Amin Doostmohammadi

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…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2018-04-25 Silke Henkes , M. Cristina Marchetti , Rastko Sknepnek

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…

We numerically model a two-dimensional active nematic confined by a periodic array of fixed obstacles. Even in the passive nematic, the appearance of topological defects is unavoidable due to planar anchoring by the obstacle surfaces. We…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2024-01-25 Cody D. Schimming , C. J. O. Reichhardt , C. Reichhardt

To enhance the understanding of the behavior of active nematic, it is important to understand the behavior of topological defects. In this paper, we study the configuration of topological defects of a two-dimensional active nematic around a…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2026-02-16 Hiroki Matsukiyo , Jun-ichi Fukuda

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…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2021-11-02 C. Rorai , F. Toschi , I. Pagonabarraga

"Active nematics" are orientationally ordered but apolar fluids composed of interacting constituents individually powered by an internal source of energy. When activity exceeds a system-size dependent threshold, spatially uniform active…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2017-11-08 Richard Green , John Toner , Vincenzo Vitelli

Using novel micro-printing techniques, we develop a versatile experimental setup that allows us to study how lateral confinement tames the active flows and defect properties of the microtubule/kinesin active nematic system. We demonstrate…

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,…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2017-11-13 Diana Khoromskaia , Gareth P. Alexander

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…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2025-06-23 Mehrana R. Nejad , L. Mahadevan

We investigate the dynamics of active nematic liquid crystals on deformable membranes, focusing on the interplay between active stress and anisotropic curvature coupling. Using a minimal model, we simulate the coupled evolution of the…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2026-05-19 Yuki Hirota , Nariya Uchida

We develop a description of defect loops in three-dimensional active nematics based on a multipole expansion of the far-field director and show how this leads to a self-dynamics dependent on the loop's geometric type. The dipole term leads…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2022-06-15 Alexander J. H. Houston , Gareth P. Alexander

We investigate the effects of extrinsic curvature on the turbulent behavior of a 2D active nematic confined to the surface of a cylinder. The surface of a cylinder has no intrinsic curvatrue and only extrinsic curvature. A nematic field…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2020-08-26 D. J. G. Pearce