Related papers: Active nematic liquid crystals under a quenched ra…
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…
We use a fluctuating hydrodynamic approach to calculate the orientation fluctuations correlation functions of a thermotropic nematic liquid crystal in a nonequilibrium state induced by a stationay heat flux. Since in this nonequilibrium…
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…
Topological defects are at the root of the large-scale organization of liquid crystals. In two-dimensional active nematics, two classes of topological defects of charges $\pm 1/2$ are known to play a major role due to active stresses.…
We investigate experimentally the dynamic phase transition of a two-dimensional active nematic layer interfaced with a passive liquid crystal. Under a temperature ramp that leads to the transition of the passive liquid into a highly…
As recently reported [Turiv T. et al., Science, 2013, Vol. 342, 1351], fluctuations in the orientation of the liquid crystal (LC) director can transfer momentum from the LC to a colloid, such that the diffusion of the colloid becomes…
Electronic nematic order has been reported in a rich landscape of materials, encompassing not only a range of intertwined correlated and topological phenomena, but also different underlying lattice symmetries. Motivated by these findings,…
We investigate the effects of extrinsic curvature on the turbulent behavior of a 2D active nematic confined to the surface of a cylinder. The surface of a cylinder has no intrinsic curvatrue and only extrinsic curvature. A nematic field…
We investigate the emergence of orientational order among +1/2 disclinations in active nematic liquid crystals. Using a combination of theoretical and experimental methods, we show that +1/2 disclinations have short-range antiferromagnetic…
In equilibrium liquid crystals, chirality leads to a variety of spectacular three-dimensional structures, but chiral and achiral phases with the same broken continuous symmetries have identical long-time, large-scale dynamics. In this…
Coherent oscillatory activity can arise spontaneously as a result of increased coupling in a system of excitable and passive cells, each being quiescent in isolation. This can potentially explain the appearance of spontaneous rhythmic…
Activity in nematics drives interfacial flows that lead to preferential alignment that is tangential or planar for extensile systems (pushers) and perpendicular or homeotropic for contractile ones (pullers). This alignment is known as…
Continuum hydrodynamic models of active liquid crystals have been used to describe dynamic self-organising systems such as bacterial swarms and cytoskeletal gels. A key prediction of such models is the existence of self-stabilising kink…
Motivated by a number of recent experimental and computational studies of the dynamics of fluids plunged in quenched-disordered external fields, we report on a theoretical investigation of this topic within the framework of the…
Phase-ordering dynamics in nematic liquid crystals has been the subject of much active investigation in recent years in theory, experiments and simulations. With a rapid quench from the isotropic to nematic phase a large number of…
The self-organization of active particles on a two-dimensional single-occupancy lattice is investigated, with an emphasis on the effects of boundary confinement and the influence of an external mean fluid flow. The study examines collective…
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…
Consideration is given to the effects of inhomogeneous shear flow (both regular and chaotic) on nematic liquid crystals in a planar geometry. The Landau--de Gennes equation coupled to an externally-prescribed flow field is the basis for the…
Active liquid crystals or active gels are soft materials which can be physically realised e.g. by preparing a solution of cytoskeletal filaments interacting with molecular motors. We study the hydrodynamics of an active liquid crystal in a…
We use geometric methods of equivariant dynamical systems to address a long-standing open problem in the theory of nematic liquid crystals, namely a proof of the existence and asymptotic stability of kayaking periodic orbits for which the…