Related papers: Dynamical Swirl Structures Powered by Microswimmer…
Swimming bacteria in passive nematics in the form of lyotropic liquid crystals are defined as a new class of active matter known as living liquid crystals in recent studies. It has also been shown that liquid crystal solutions are promising…
Active systems comprised of self-propelled units show fascinating transitions from Brownian-like dynamics to collective coherent motion. Swirling of swimming bacteria is a spectacular example. This study demonstrates that a nematic liquid…
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,…
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…
One of the defining features of active nematics is that above a critical activity the quiescent state becomes unstable to a distorted, flowing one. We show that spatial variations in activity can fundamentally change the nature of this…
Systems of motile microorganisms exhibit a multitude of collective phenomena, including motility-induced phase separation and turbulence. Sensing of the environment and adaptation of movement plays an essential role in the emergent…
Active droplets are artificial microswimmers built from a liquid dispersion by microfluidic tools and showing self-propelled motion. These systems hold particular interest for mimicking biological phenomena, such as some aspects of cell…
An artificial microswimmer drifts in response to spatio-temporal modulations of an activating suspension medium. We consider two competing mechanisms capable of influencing its tactic response: angular fluctuations, which help it explore…
Meso-scale turbulence was originally observed experimentally in various suspensions of swimming bacteria, as well as in the collective motion of active colloids. The corresponding large-scale dynamical patterns were reproduced in a simple…
Topological defects play a key role in two-dimensional active nematics, and a transient role in two-dimensional active polar fluids. In this paper, we study both the transient and long-time behavior of defects in two-dimensional active…
Natural habitats of most living microorganisms are distinguished by a complex structure often formed by a porous medium such as soil. The dynamics and transport properties of motile microorganisms are strongly affected by crowded and…
Models of active nematics in biological systems normally require complexity arising from the hydrodynamics involved at the microscopic level as well as the viscoelastic nature of the system. Here we show that a minimal, space-independent,…
Spatially localised defect structures emerge spontaneously in a hydrodynamic description of an active polar fluid comprising polar 'actin' filaments and 'myosin' motor proteins that (un)bind to filaments and exert active contractile…
Cooperative motion in biological microswimmers is crucial for their survival as it facilitates adhesion to surfaces, formation of hierarchical colonies, efficient motion, and enhanced access to nutrients. Synthetic microswimmers currently…
Swimming cells and microorganisms must often move though complex fluids that contain an immersed microstructure such as polymer molecules, or filaments. In many important biological processes, such as mammalian reproduction and bacterial…
Active matter comprised of self-propelled interacting units holds a major promise for extraction of useful work from its seemingly chaotic out-of-equilibrium dynamics. Streamlining active matter to produce work is especially important at…
The hydrodynamic theory of active nematics has been often used to describe the spatio-temporal dynamics of cell flows and motile topological defects within soft confluent tissues. Those theories, however, often rely on the assumption that…
Swimming in low-Reynolds-number fluids requires the breaking of time-reversal symmetry and centrosymmetry. Microswimmers, often with asymmetric shapes, exhibit nonreciprocal motions or exploit nonequilibrium processes to propel. The role of…
Increasing evidence suggests that active matter exhibits instances of mixed symmetry that cannot be fully described by either polar or nematic formalism. Here, we introduce a minimal model that integrates self-propulsion into the active…
Microswimmers are encountered in a wide variety of biophysical settings. When interacting with flow fields, they show interesting dynamical features such as trapping, clustering, and preferential orientation. One important step towards the…