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Related papers: Topological transformations of a nematic drop

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Topological phases of matter are ubiquitous in crystals, but less is known about their existence in amorphous systems, that lack long-range order. In this perspective, we review the recent progress made on theoretically defining amorphous…

Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics · Physics 2023-03-30 Paul Corbae , Julia D. Hannukainen , Quentin Marsal , Daniel Muñoz-Segovia , Adolfo G. Grushin

Curved particles have been shown to stabilize a range of states with unique order in dense suspensions of colloidal bent core liquid crystals. The shape of the colloidal rods encourages the formation of curved director fields. However,…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2026-01-08 Nicholas W. Hackney , Joel T. Clemmer , Gary S. Grest

Collective cell motions underlie structure formation during embryonic development. Tissues exhibit emergent multicellular characteristics such as jamming, rigidity transitions, and glassy dynamics, but there remain questions about how those…

Biological Physics · Physics 2023-12-13 Evan Thomas , Sevan Hopyan

Mechanical metamaterials are periodic lattice structures with complex unit cell architectures that can achieve extraordinary mechanical properties beyond the capability of bulk materials. A new class of metamaterials is proposed, whose…

Applied Physics · Physics 2022-07-22 Marius Wagner , Fabian Schwarz , Nick Huber , Lena Geistlich , Henning Galinski , Ralph Spolenak

The morphologies of genus-2 to -8 fluid vesicles are studied by using dynamically triangulated membrane simulations with area-difference elasticity. It is revealed that the alignments of the membrane pores alter the vesicle shapes and the…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2015-12-22 Hiroshi Noguchi

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…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2023-07-13 Timo Krüger , Ivan Maryshev , Erwin Frey

We investigate the interaction of magnetic vortices and skyrmions with a spin-polarized current. In a square lattice, fixed classical spins and quantum itinerant electrons, evolve according to the coupled Landau-Lifshitz and Schr\"odinger…

Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics · Physics 2014-04-22 Ricardo Gabriel Elias , Alberto D. Verga

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…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2023-07-03 Sami C. Al-Izzi , Gareth P. Alexander

Transport of microscopic objects across biological membranes usually involves membrane deformation to enclose the object followed by detachment of the engulfed particle. However, in artificial membranes, this last topological remodelling…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2025-03-25 Florent Fessler , Pierre Muller , Antonio Stocco

Cell deformability is an essential determinant for tissue-scale mechanical nature, such as fluidity and rigidity, and is thus crucial for understanding tissue homeostasis and stable developmental processes. However, numerical simulations…

Tissues and Organs · Quantitative Biology 2023-03-08 Nen Saito , Shuji Ishihara

Topological defects are ubiquitous in physics. Whenever a symmetry breaking phase transition occurs, topological defects may form. The best known examples are vortex lines in type II super conductors or in liquid Helium, and declination…

Astrophysics · Physics 2011-07-19 R. Durrer , M. Kunz , A. Melchiorri

Toroidal nematics are droplets of nematic liquid crystals in the form of a circular torus. When the nematic director is subject to planar degenerate boundary conditions, the bend-only director field with vector lines along the parallels of…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2018-10-29 Andrea Pedrini , Marco Piastra , Epifanio G. Virga

Nematic liquid crystals can dramatically reconfigure under dynamic forcing, providing exciting opportunities in active matter. Here, we study a hybrid disk colloid rotated by an external field which generates a dynamic companion topological…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2026-05-26 Qi Xing Zhang , Claire Dore , Mojtaba Rajabi , Edward B. Steager , Kathleen J. Stebe

Point-like topological defects are singular configurations that occur in a variety of in and out of equilibrium systems with two-dimensional orientational order. As they are associated with a nonzero circuitation condition, the presence of…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2023-07-13 Jacopo Romano , Benoît Mahault , Ramin Golestanian

There are two prominent applications of the mathematical concept of topology to the physics of materials: band topology, which classifies different topological insulators and semimetals, and topological defects that represent immutable…

Materials Science · Physics 2022-08-11 Zhi-Kang Lin , Qiang Wang , Yang Liu , Haoran Xue , Baile Zhang , Yidong Chong , Jian-Hua Jiang

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

Topology can manifest itself in colloids when quantified by invariants like Euler characteristics of nonzero-genus colloidal surfaces, albeit spherical colloidal particles are most often studied, and colloidal particles with complex…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2025-03-25 Jun-Yong Lee , Asha Kumari , Ye Yuan , Mykola Tasinkevych , Ivan I. Smalyukh

Shape transformations of epithelial tissues in three dimensions, which are crucial for embryonic development or in vitro organoid growth, can result from active forces generated within the cytoskeleton of the epithelial cells. How the…

Biological Physics · Physics 2024-12-23 Diana Khoromskaia , Guillaume Salbreux

The encapsulation of active particles, such as bacteria or active colloids, inside a droplet gives rise to nontrivial shape dynamics and droplet motility. To understand this behavior, we derive an asymptotic solution for the fluid flow…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2025-03-19 Sho Kawakami , Petia M. Vlahovska

Simulations of nematic-isotropic transition of liquid crystals in two dimensions are performed using an O(2) vector model characterised by non linear nearest neighbour spin interaction governed by the fourth Legendre polynomial $P\_4$. The…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2016-08-16 Ana Fariñas-Sanchez , Ricardo Paredes , Bertrand Berche