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Stress generation by the actin cytoskeleton shapes cells and tissues. Despite impressive progress in live imaging and quantitative physical descriptions of cytoskeletal network dynamics, the connection between processes at molecular scales…
Recent studies have shown the fluid of hard right triangles to possess fourfold and quasi-eightfold (octatic) orientational symmetries. However, the standard density-functional theory for two-dimensional anisotropic fluids, based on…
Recent work has identified persistent cluster states which were shown to be assembled and held together by hydrodynamic interactions alone [Driscoll \textit{et al.} (2017) Nature Physics, 13(4), 375]. These states were seen in systems of…
Many microorganisms use chemical `signaling' - a quintessential self-organizing strategy in non-equilibrium - that can induce spontaneous aggregation and coordination in behavior. Using synthetic signaling as a design principle, we…
Active networks made of biopolymers and motor proteins are valuable bioinspired systems that have been used in the last decades to study the cytoskeleton and its self-organization under mechanical stimulation. Different techniques are…
Magnetotactic bacteria (MTB) are endowed with an exquisite orientation mechanism allowing them to swim along the geomagnetic field lines. This mechanism consists of a chain of bio-synthesized magnetic nano-crystals that endow MTB with a…
Cells are fundamental building blocks of living organisms displaying an array of shapes, morphologies, and textures that encode specific functions and physical behaviors. Elucidating the rules of this code remains a challenge. In this work,…
Manipulating the way in which colloidal particles self-organise is a central challenge in the design of functional soft materials. Meeting this challenge requires the use of building blocks that interact with one another in a highly…
An optimal microswimmer with a given geometry has a surface velocity profile that minimizes energy dissipation for a given swimming speed. An axisymmetric swimmer can be puller-, pusher-, or neutral-type depending on the sign of the…
Microswimmers in suspension exhibit collective swimming behaviour, forming various self-organised structures including ordered, aggregated, and turbulent-like structures. When mixed with passive particles phase-separation is known to occur,…
Collections of persistently moving active particles are an example of a nonequilibrium heat bath. One way to study the nature of nonequilibrium fluctuations in such systems is to follow the dynamics of an embedded probe particle. With this…
We describe a method for programming the autonomous navigation of active colloidal particles in response to spatial gradients in a scalar stimulus. Functional behaviors such as positive or negative chemotaxis are encoded in the particle…
We study an active matter system comprised of magnetic microswimmers confined in a microfluidic channel and show that it exhibits a new type of self-organized behavior. Combining analytical techniques and Brownian dynamics simulations, we…
The impact of complex media on the dynamics of active swimmers has gained a thriving interest in the research community for their prominent applications in various fields. This paper investigates the effect of viscoelasticity on the…
The hydrodynamic stresses created by active particles can destabilise orientational order present in the system. This is manifested, for example, by the appearance of a bend instability in active nematics or in quasi-2-dimensional living…
We show that a two-dimensional system of flocking microswimmers interacting hydrodynamically can be expressed using a Hamiltonian formalism. The Hamiltonian depends strictly on the angles between the particles and their swimming…
We study the dynamics of pattern formation in a minimal model for active mixtures made of microtubules and molecular motors. We monitor the evolution of the (conserved) microtubule density and of the (non-conserved) nematic order parameter,…
Mobile microrobots are envisioned to be useful in a wide range of high-impact applications, many of which requiring cohesive group formation to maintain self-bounded swarms in the absence of confining boundaries. Cohesive group formation…
In this paper we are interested in optimizing the shape of multi-flagellated helical microswimmers. Mimicking the propagation of helical waves along the flagella, they self-propel by rotating their tails. The swimmer's dynamics is computed…
The self-propelled motion of microscopic bodies immersed in a fluid medium is studied using molecular dynamics simulation. The advantage of the atomistic approach is that the detailed level of description allows complete freedom in…