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Related papers: Mechanochemical Topological Defects in an Active N…

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Point-like motile topological defects control the universal dynamics of diverse two-dimensional active nematics ranging from shaken granular rods to cellular monolayers. A comparable understanding in higher dimensions has yet to emerge. We…

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,…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2026-03-19 Ido Lavi , Ricard Alert , Jean-François Joanny , Jaume Casademunt

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 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

Topological defects, which are singular points in a director field, play a major role in shaping active systems. Here, we experimentally study topological defects and the flow patterns around them, that are formed during the highly rapid…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2024-03-20 Victor Yashunsky , Daniel J. G. Pearce , Gil Ariel , Avraham Be'er

Active nematics are out-of-equilibrium systems in which energy injection at the microscale drives emergent collective behaviors, from spontaneous flows to active turbulence. While the dynamics of these systems have been extensively studied,…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2025-04-15 Ahmet Umut Akduman , Yusuf Sariyar , Giuseppe Negro , Livio Nicola Carenza

The topological properties of many materials are central to their behavior, with the dynamics of topological defects being particularly important to intrinsically out-of-equilibrium, active materials. In this paper, local manipulation of…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2019-11-01 David P. Rivas , Tyler N. Shendruk , Robert R. Henry , Daniel H. Reich , Robert L. Leheny

Topological defects in systems with liquid-crystalline order are crucial in determining their large-scale properties. In active systems, they are known to have properties impossible at equilibrium: for example, $+1/2$ defects in…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2026-02-17 Giacomo Marco La Montagna , Sumeja Burekovic , Ananyo Maitra , Cesare Nardini

We characterise the particlelike kinematics of charge-carrying topological defects in nematic media via a geometric field theory. This differs from the theory of electromagnetism, with which it is often compared, due to the absence of…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2026-05-22 Joseph Pollard , Richard G. Morris

Using the Born-Oppenheimer approximation, we present a general description of topological defects dynamics in $p$-atic materials on curved surfaces, and simplify it in the case of active nematics. We find that activity induces a geometric…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2023-08-02 Farzan Vafa , David R. Nelson , Amin Doostmohammadi

Active nematics contain topological defects which under sufficient activity move, create and annihilate in a chaotic quasi-steady state, called active turbulence. However, understanding active defects under confinement is an open challenge,…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2019-10-02 Simon Čopar , Jure Aplinc , Žiga Kos , Slobodan Žumer , Miha Ravnik

Active nematics are microscopically driven liquid crystals that exhibit dynamical steady states characterized by the creation and annihilation of topological defects. Motivated by experimental realizations of such systems made of biopolymer…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2018-09-05 Abhijeet Joshi , Elias Putzig , Aparna Baskaran , Michael Hagan

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…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2015-06-19 Luca Giomi , Mark J. Bowick , Prashant Mishra , Rastko Sknepnek , M. Cristina Marchetti

We introduce a general description of localised distortions in active nematics using the framework of active nematic multipoles. We give the Stokesian flows for arbitrary multipoles in terms of differentiation of a fundamental flow response…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2023-04-04 Alexander J. H. Houston , Gareth P. Alexander

Cultured stem cells have become a standard platform not only for regenerative medicine and developmental biology but also for biophysical studies. Yet, the characterization of cultured stem cells at the level of morphology and macroscopic…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2022-06-23 Kyogo Kawaguchi , Ryoichiro Kageyama , Masaki Sano

Topological defects in active polar fluids exhibit complex dynamics driven by internally generated stresses, reflecting the deep interplay between topology, flow, and non-equilibrium hydrodynamics. Feedback control offers a powerful means…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2025-07-28 Abhinav Singh , Petros Koumoutsakos

Recent experiments and numerical studies have drawn attention to the dynamics of active nematics. Two-dimensional active nematics flow spontaneously and exhibit spatiotemporal chaotic flows with proliferation of topological defects in the…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2020-07-08 Farzan Vafa , Mark J. Bowick , M. Cristina Marchetti , Boris I. Shraiman

Active matter often simultaneously exhibits different kinds of orientational order and, in many cases of biological interest, undergoes continuous material renewal. In renewing nematopolar fluids we find stable topological strings,…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2026-01-27 Alberto Dinelli , Ludovic Dumoulin , Karsten Kruse

We present a generic framework for modelling three-dimensional deformable shells of active matter that captures the orientational dynamics of the active particles and hydrodynamic interactions on the shell and with the surrounding…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2019-11-20 Luuk Metselaar , Julia M. Yeomans , Amin Doostmohammadi

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…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2024-11-27 Cody D. Schimming , C. J. O. Reichhardt , C. Reichhardt