Related papers: Statistical physics of active matter, cell divisio…
The importance of molecular-scale forces in sculpting biological form and function has been acknowledged for more than a century. Accounting for forces in biology is a problem that lies at the intersection of soft condensed matter physics,…
Statistical physics provides a useful perspective for the analysis of many complex systems; it allows us to relate microscopic fluctuations to macroscopic observations. Developmental biology, but also cell biology more generally, are…
Active materials are capable of converting free energy into mechanical work to produce autonomous motion, and exhibit striking collective dynamics that biology relies on for essential functions. Controlling those dynamics and transport in…
Interaction of electric fields with biological cells is indispensable for many physiological processes. Thermal electrical noise in the cellular environment has long been considered as the minimum threshold for detection of electrical…
Active materials are capable of converting free energy into directional motion, giving rise to striking dynamical phenomena. Developing a general understanding of their structure in relation to the underlying non-equilibrium physics would…
Relevant and fundamental concepts of the statistical mechanical theory of classical liquids are ordinarily introduced in the context of the description of thermodynamic equilibrium states. This makes explicit reference to probability…
The structure and dynamics of important biological quasi-two-dimensional systems, ranging from cytoskeletal gels to tissues, are controlled by nematic order, flow, defects and activity. Continuum hydrodynamic descriptions combined with…
The accumulation of self-propelled particles on repulsive barriers is a widely observed feature in active matter. Despite being implicated in a broad range of biological processes, from biofilm formation to cytoskeletal movement, wetting of…
Collective motion is often modeled within the framework of active fluids, where the constituent active particles, when interactions with other particles are switched off, perform normal diffusion at long times. However, in biology,…
Living materials such as membranes, cytoskeletal assemblies, cell collectives and tissues can often be described as active solids -- materials that are energized from within, with elastic response about a well defined reference…
The study of systems with sustained energy uptake and dissipation at the scale of the constituent particles is an area of central interest in nonequilibrium statistical physics. Identifying such systems as a distinct category -- Active…
Recent attempts towards a theory of active matter utilize concepts and methods from hydrodynamics, kinetic theory, and non-equilibrium statistical physics. However, such approaches typically do not seem to recognize the critical feature of…
Hydrodynamic theories effectively describe many-body systems out of equilibrium in terms of a few macroscopic parameters. However, such hydrodynamic parameters are difficult to derive from microscopics. Seldom is this challenge more…
We present a hydrodynamic theory to describe shear flows in developing epithelial tissues. We introduce hydrodynamic fields corresponding to state properties of constituent cells as well as a contribution to overall tissue shear flow due to…
Engineering synthetic materials that mimic the remarkable complexity of living organisms is a fundamental challenge in science and technology. We study the spatiotemporal patterns that emerge when an active nematicfilm of microtubules and…
The term active matter describes diverse systems, spanning macroscopic (e.g. shoals of fish and flocks of birds) to microscopic scales (e.g. migrating cells, motile bacteria and gels formed through the interaction of nanoscale molecular…
The methods of statistical mechanics are applied to two-dimensional foams under macroscopic agitation. A new variable -- the total cell curvature -- is introduced, which plays the role of energy in conventional statistical thermodynamics.…
We report the complete statistical treatment of a system of particles interacting via Newtonian forces in continuous boundary-driven flow, far from equilibrium. By numerically time-stepping the force-balance equations of a model fluid we…
Starting from a microscopic model of self-propelled hard spheres we use tools of non-equilibrium statistical mechanics and the kinetic theory of hard spheres to derive a Smoluchowski equation for interacting Active Brownian particles. We…
Active matter, comprising many active agents interacting and moving in fluids or more complex environments, is a commonly occurring state of matter in biological and physical systems. By its very nature active matter systems exist in…