Related papers: Shaping active matter from crystalline solids to a…
The emergence of long-range spatiotemporal order from intrinsic chaos is a central challenge in far-from-equilibrium physics. In active fluids, such as cytoskeletal networks driving cellular motion, self-generated flows typically produce…
Designing microscopic and nanoscopic self-propelled particles and characterising their motion has become a major scientific challenge over the past decades. To this purpose, phoretic effects, namely propulsion mechanisms relying on local…
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…
Models for fluid deformable surfaces provide valid theories to describe the dynamics of thin fluidic sheets of soft materials. To use such models in morphogenesis and development requires to incorporate active forces. We consider active…
Tangled active filaments are ubiquitous in nature, from chromosomal DNA and cilia carpets to root networks and worm blobs. How activity and elasticity facilitate collective topological transformations in living tangled matter is not well…
There is current interest in developing photoactive materials that deform on illumination and can thus be used for photomechanical actuation. This is attractive since it can be affected at a distance, different frequencies can be used to…
Many biological systems consist of self-motile and passive agents both of which contribute to overall functionality. However, there are very few studies of the properties of such mixtures. Here we formulate a model for mixtures of…
Active fluids exhibit spontaneous flows with complex spatiotemporal structure, which have been observed in bacterial suspensions, sperm cells, cytoskeletal suspensions, self-propelled colloids, and cell tissues. Despite occurring in the…
Turbulence is hard to control. A plethora of experimental methods have been developed to generate this ephemeral state of matter, leading to fundamental insights into its statistical and structural features as well as its onset at ever…
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…
Cells and microorganisms employ dynamic shape changes to enable steering and avoidance for efficient spatial exploration and collective organization. In contrast, active colloids, their synthetic counterparts, currently lack similar…
Active matter systems may be characterised by the conversion of energy into active motion, e.g. the self-propulsion of microorganisms. Artificial active colloids form models which exhibit essential properties of more complex biological…
Active turbulence in dense active systems is characterized by high vorticity on a length scale that is large compared to that of individual entities. We describe the properties of active turbulence as momentum propagation is screened by…
Active matter systems typically exhibit a trade-off between structural robustness and dynamical freedom, limiting independent control over structure and motion. Here, we show that encoding interactions in a shared field overcomes this…
Active particles contain internal degrees of freedom with the ability to take in and dissipate energy and, in the process, execute systematic movement. Examples include all living organisms and their motile constituents such as molecular…
External fields can decidedly alter the free energy landscape of soft materials and can be exploited as a powerful tool for the assembly of targeted nanostructures and colloidal materials. Here, we use computer simulations to demonstrate…
Self-propelling active matter relies on the conversion of energy from the undirected, nanoscopic scale to directed, macroscopic motion. One of the challenges in the design of synthetic active matter lies in the control of dynamic states, or…
Active matter is naturally out of equilibrium which results in the emergence of diverse dynamic steady states, including the omnipresent chaotic state known as the active turbulence. However, much less is known how active systems…
High-density granular active matter is a useful model for dense animal collectives and could be useful for designing reconfigurable materials that can flow or solidify on command. Recent work has demonstrated key similarities and…
The interplay between active matter and its environment is central to understanding emergent behavior in biological and synthetic systems. Here, we show that coupling active nematic flows to small-amplitude deformations of a compliant…