Related papers: Spontaneous Self-Constraint in Active Nematic Flow…
Topological defects in nematically aligned cell populations play a critical role in modulating collective motion, from microbial colonies to epithelial tissues. Despite the potential of manipulating such topological defects to control…
We investigate the mechanics of an active droplet endowed with internal nematic order and surrounded by an isotropic Newtonian fluid. Using numerical simulations we demonstrate that, due to the interplay between the active stresses and the…
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…
We propose an agent-based model of active flexible rods. Inspired by cytoskeletal flows, we introduce activity by an internal flow that contributes to the dissipative forces. The active force between our agents is central and reciprocal,…
The spontaneous emergence of collective flows is a generic property of active fluids and often leads to chaotic flow patterns characterised by swirls, jets, and topological disclinations in their orientation field. However, the ability to…
We study how confinement transforms the chaotic dynamics of bulk microtubule-based active nematics into regular spatiotemporal patterns. For weak confinements, multiple continuously nucleating and annihilating topological defects…
Many active fluid systems encountered in biology are set in total geometric confinement. Cytoplasmic streaming in plant cells is a prominent and ubiquitous example, in which cargo-carrying molecular motors move along polymer filaments and…
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…
The self-propulsion of +1/2 topological defects is a hallmark of active nematic fluids, where the defects are advected by the flow field they themselves generate. In this paper we propose a minimal model for defect self-propulsion in a…
Active gels play an important role in biology and in inspiring biomimetic active materials, due to their ability to change shape, size and create their own morphology; the relevant mechanics behind these changes is driven by…
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…
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…
Active matter comprised of self-propelled interacting units holds a major promise for extraction of useful work from its seemingly chaotic out-of-equilibrium dynamics. Streamlining active matter to produce work is especially important at…
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 numerically investigate how spatial variations of extensile or contractile active stress affect bulk active nematic systems in two and three dimensions. In the absence of defects, activity gradients drive flows which re-orient the…
Coupling between flows and material properties imbues rheological matter with its wide-ranging applicability, hence the excitement for harnessing the rheology of active fluids for which internal structure and continuous energy injection…
We use linear stability analysis and hybrid lattice Boltzmann simulations to study the dynamical behaviour of an active nematic confined in a channel made of viscoelastic material. We find that the quiescent, ordered active nematic is…
We study two models of overdamped self-propelled disks in two dimensions, with and without aligning interactions. Active mesoscale flows leading to chaotic advection emerge in both models in the homogeneous dense fluid away from dynamical…
Recent experimental studies have shown that confinement can profoundly affect self-organization in semi-dilute active suspensions, leading to striking features such as the formation of steady and spontaneous vortices in circular domains and…
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…