Related papers: Activity-driven polymer knotting for macromolecula…
Long, flexible physical filaments are naturally tangled and knotted, from macroscopic string down to long-chain molecules. The existence of knotting in a filament naturally affects its configuration and properties, and may be very stable or…
The art of tying knots is exploited in nature and occurs in multiple applications ranging from being an essential part of scouting programs to engineering molecular knots. Biomolecular knots, such as knotted proteins, bear various cellular…
We present a novel phenomenological theory describing how topological constraints in prime-knot ring polymers induce collective (cooperative) modes of motion. In low-complexity knots, chain segments can move quasi-independently. However, as…
We present a molecular dynamics study of the influence of knot complexity and molecular mass on glass formation upon cooling in knotted ring polymer melts. We find that cooperative motion, rigidity, and glassy dynamics can be tuned over a…
We study the motion of dispersed nanoprobes in entangled active-passive polymer mixtures. By comparing the two architectures of linear vs. unconcatenated and unknotted circular polymers, we demonstrate that novel, rich physics emerge. For…
Simulations of knotting and unknotting in polymers or other filaments rely on random processes to facilitate topological changes. Here we introduce a method of \textit{topological steering} to determine the optimal pathway by which a…
Active nematics are out-of-equilibrium systems in which energy injection at the microscale drives emergent collective behaviors, from spontaneous flows to active turbulence. While the dynamics of these systems have been extensively studied,…
We computationally investigate the active transport of tangentially-driven polymers with varying degrees of flexibility and activity in two-dimensional square lattices of obstacles. Tight periodic confinement induces notable conformational…
The folding transition of biopolymers from the coil to compact structures has attracted wide research interest in the past and is well studied in polymer physics. Recent seminal works on DNA in confined devices have shown that these long…
The mechanical properties of polymer knots under stretching in a bad or good solvent are investigated by applying a given force $F$ to a point of the knot while keeping another point fixed. The Monte Carlo sampling of the polymer…
Knotted molecules occur naturally and are designed by scientists to gain special biological and material properties. Understanding and utilizing knotting require efficient methods to recognize and generate knotted structures, which are…
We investigate the nonequilibrium dynamics of semiflexible polymers driven by motor proteins (MPs) in two-dimensional motility assays under harmonic confinement. Using a coarse-grained agent-based model that incorporates stochastic motor…
Motor-proteins are responsible for transport inside cells. Harnessing their activity is key towards developing new nano-technologies, or functional biomaterials. Cytoskeleton-like networks, recently tailored in vitro, result from the…
Polymer chains decorated with a fraction of monomers capable of forming reversible bonds form transient polymer networks that are important in soft and biological systems. If chains are flexible and the attractive monomers are all of the…
Active matter agents consume internal energy or extract energy from the environment for locomotion and force generation. Already rather generic models, such as ensembles of active Brownian particles, exhibit phenomena, which are absent at…
Curved elastic shells can be fabricated through molding or by harnessing residual stresses. These shells often exhibit snap-through behavior and multistability when loaded. We present a unique way of fabricating curved elastic shells that…
Detailed thermodynamic analysis of complex systems with multiple stable configurational states allows for insight into the cooperativity of each individual transition. In this work we derive a heat capacity decomposition comprising…
In nature interactions between biopolymers and motor proteins give rise to biologically essential emergent behaviours. Besides cytoskeleton mechanics, active nematics arise from such interactions. Here we present a study on 3D active…
Active materials with distinctive nonequilibrium properties have diverse materials science applications. Active systems are common in living matter, such as the filament network in the cell that is activated by molecular motors, and in…
This work investigates the effects of tangent polar activity on the conformational and dynamic properties of entangled polymer melts through Langevin molecular dynamics simulations. We examine systems composed of all self-propelled,…