Related papers: Complex flow profiles in microscopic active crysta…

The aggregation of binary colloids of same size and balanced charges is studied by Brownian dynamics simulations for dilute suspensions. It is shown that, under appropriate conditions, the formation of colloidal crystals is dominated by…

Biomolecular condensates play a central role in the spatial organization of living matter. Their formation is now well understood as a form of liquid-liquid phase separation that occurs very far from equilibrium. For instance, they can be…

Driven suspensions, where energy is input at a particle scale, are a framework for understanding general principles of out-of-equilibrium organization. A large number of simple interacting units can give rise to non-trivial structure and…

Even simple active systems can show a plethora of intriguing phenomena and often we find complexity were we would have expected simplicity. One striking example is the occurrence of a quiescent or absorbing state with frozen fluctuations…

We develop a formal analogy between configurational stresses in two distinct physical systems, and study the flows that they induce when the configurations of interest include topological de- fects. The two systems in question are…

Emergent nonreciprocity in active matter drives the formation of self-organized states that transcend the behaviors of equilibrium systems. Integrating experiments, theory and simulations, we demonstrate that active solids composed of…

Within the framework of mode-coupling theory, we present a simple model for describing dense assemblies of active (self-propelled) spherical colloidal particles. For isotropic suspensions, we demonstrate that the glass transition is shifted…

Although density functional theory provides reliable predictions for the static properties of simple fluids under confinement, a theory of comparative accuracy for the transport coefficients has yet to emerge. Nonetheless, there is evidence…

Drops of active liquid crystal have recently shown the ability to self-propel, which was associated with topological defects in the orientation of active filaments [Sanchez {\em et al.}, Nature {\bf 491}, 431 (2013)]. Here, we study the…

The study of liquid crystals at equilibrium has led to fundamental insights into the nature of ordered materials, as well as to practical applications such as display technologies. Active nematics are a fundamentally different class of…

When strained beyond the linear regime, soft colloidal glasses yield to steady-state plastic flow in a way that is similar to the deformation of conventional amorphous solids. Due to the much larger size of the colloidal particles with…

We study a two-dimensional crystal composed of active units governed by self-alignment. This mechanism induces a torque that aligns a particle's orientation with its velocity and leads to a phase transition from a disordered to a flocking…

We experimentally and numerically study the structure and dynamics of a mono-disperse packing of spontaneously aligning self-propelled hard disks. The packings are such that their equilibrium counterparts form perfectly ordered hexagonal…

Collections of interacting, self-propelled particles have been extensively studied as minimal models of many living and synthetic systems from bird flocks to active colloids. However, the influence of active rotations in the absence of…

We simulate the nonlocal Stokesian hydrodynamics of an elastic filament which is active due a permanent distribution of stresslets along its contour. A bending instability of an initially straight filament spontaneously breaks flow symmetry…

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…

Active semiflexible filaments are crucial in various biophysical processes, yet insights into their single-filament behavior have predominantly relied on theory and simulations, owing to the scarcity of controllable synthetic systems. Here,…

Emergent behaviors occur in a vast array of systems across many scales, and are of fundamental physical importance because of the intrinsic difficulty in linking microscopic system properties to macroscopic behaviors. Here we study the…

We consider two minimal models of active fluid droplets that exhibit complex dynamics including steady motion, deformation, rotation and oscillating motion. First we consider a droplet with a concentration of active contractile matter…

The steady state reached by a system of particles sliding down a fluctuating surface has interesting properties. Particle clusters form and break rapidly, leading to a broad distribution of sizes and large fluctuations. The density-density…