Related papers: Orientational ordering in active nematic solids

We study the kinetics of the nematic-isotropic transition in a two-dimensional liquid crystal by using a lattice Boltzmann scheme that couples the tensor order parameter and the flow consistently. Unlike in previous studies, we find the…

Modeling liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs) at the molecular level is crucial for the predictable design of energy-conversion and stimuli-responsive materials. Here, we develop a self-consistent field theory for LCEs which captures the…

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…

Ordered, collective motions commonly arise spontaneously in systems of many interacting, active units, ranging from cellular tissues and bacterial colonies to self-propelled colloids and animal flocks. Active phases are especially rich when…

Active forces occurring within cells can drive crucial biological processes that involve spontaneous organization and shape change, such as cell division. Motivated by recent in vitro experiments of nematic droplets of cytoskeletal…

I put forward a continuum theory for active nematic gels, defined as fluids or suspensions of orientable rodlike objects endowed with active dynamics, that is based on symmetry arguments and compatibility with thermodynamics. The starting…

Biological tissues exhibit diverse mechanical and rheological behaviors during morphogenesis. While much is known about tissue phase transitions controlled by structural order and cell mechanics, key questions regarding how tissue-scale…

The dynamics of cellular pattern formation is crucial for understanding embryonic development and tissue morphogenesis. Recent studies have shown that human dermal fibroblasts cultured on liquid crystal elastomers can exhibit an increase in…

We introduce a lattice model for active nematic composed of self-propelled apolar particles,study its different ordering states in the density-temperature parameter space, and compare with the corresponding equilibrium model. The active…

We present in this paper a detailed analysis of the flexoelectric instability of a planar nematic layer in the presence of an alternating electric field (frequency $\omega$), which leads to stripe patterns (flexodomains) in the plane of the…

Motivated by experiments in electroconvection in nematic liquid crystals with homeotropic alignment we study the coupled amplitude equations describing the formation of a stationary roll pattern in the presence of a weakly-damped mode that…

Despite their considerable practical and biological applications, the link between molecular properties, assembly conditions and self-organized structure in confined polymer solutions remains elusive. Here, we explore the lyotropic nematic…

In liquid-crystalline elastomers, the nematic order parameter and the induced strain vary smoothly across the isotropic-nematic transition, without the expected first-order discontinuity. To investigate this smooth variation, we measure the…

Instabilities in thin elastic sheets, such as wrinkles, are of broad interest both from a fundamental viewpoint and also because of their potential for engineering applications. Nematic liquid crystal elastomers offer a new form of control…

Using a microscopic model of interacting polar biofilaments and motor proteins, we characterize the phase diagram of both homogeneous and inhomogeneous states in terms of experimental parameters. The polarity of motor clusters is key in…

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…

We examine the instabilities of a confined active nematic subjected to an orienting field using a low Reynolds number Ericksen-Leslie framework with active stresses and field-induced torques. Linear analysis reveals two distinct modes, with…

We use a continuum, two-fluid approach to study a mixture of two active nematic fluids. Even in the absence of thermodynamically-driven ordering, for mixtures of different activities we observe turbulent microphase separation, where domains…

Phase separation of sequence-disordered liquid crystalline polymers, a promising class of technological and biological relevance, is studied by field theory, and thermodynamic mechanisms responsible for orientational ordering observed in…

Motivated by the observation of highly unstable flowing states in suspensions of microtubules and kinesin, we analyze a model of mutually-propelled filaments suspended in a solvent. The system undergoes a mean-field isotropic-nematic…