Related papers: Interfacial instability of confined 3D active drop…
We study the linear stability of an isotropic active fluid in three different geometries: a film of active fluid on a rigid substrate, a cylindrical thread of fluid, and a spherical fluid droplet. The active fluid is modeled by the…
From the mitotic spindle up to tissues and biofilms, many biological systems behave as active droplets, which often break symmetry and change shape spontaneously. Here, I show that active nematic droplets can experience a fingering…
The translation and shape deformations of a passive viscous Newtonian droplet immersed in an active nematic liquid crystal under circular confinement are analyzed using a linear stability analysis. We focus on the case of a sharply aligned…
We study the structure and dynamics of the interface separating a passive fluid from a microtubule-based active fluid. Turbulent-like active flows power giant interfacial fluctuations, which exhibit pronounced asymmetry between regions of…
We numerically investigate the morphology and disclination line dynamics of active nematic droplets in three dimensions. Although our model only incorporates the simplest possible form of achiral active stress, active nematic droplets…
Two-fluid interfaces in porous media, an example of driven disordered systems, were studied by a real time three-dimensional imaging technique with pore scale resolution for a less viscous fluid displacing a more viscous one. With…
We use numerical simulations to investigate the hydrodynamic behavior of the interface between nematic (N) and isotropic (I) phases of a confined active liquid crystal. At low activities, a stable interface with constant shape and velocity…
We numerically study the effect of an active turbulent environment on a passive deformable droplet. The system is simulated using coupled hydrodynamic and nematodynamic equations for nematic liquid crystals with an active stress which is…
We present an experimental study of immiscible, two-phase fluid flow through a three-dimensional porous medium consisting of randomly-packed, monodisperse glass spheres. Our experiments combine refractive-index matching and laser-induced…
Here we study theoretically the dynamics of a 2D and a 3D isotropic droplet in a nematic liquid crystal under a shear flow. We find a large repertoire of possible nonequilibrium steady states as a function of the shear rate and of the…
We study emergent dynamics in a viscous drop subject to interfacial nematic activity. Using hydrodynamic simulations, we show how the interplay of nematodynamics, activity-driven flows and surface deformations gives rise to a sequence of…
The growth of interfacial instabilities during fluid displacements can be driven by gradients in pressure, viscosity and surface tension, and by applying external fields. Since displacements of non-Newtonian fluids such as polymer…
Controlling interfaces of phase separating fluid mixtures is key to creating diverse functional soft materials. Traditionally, this is accomplished with surface-modifying chemical agents. Using experiment and theory, we study how mechanical…
We study the bendocapillary instability of a liquid droplet that part fills a flexible walled channel. Inspired by experiments in which a `weaving' pattern emerges as droplets of liquid are condensed slowly into deformable microchannels, we…
Hypothesis: Interfacial instabilities cause undesirable droplet breakage during impact. Such breakage affects many applications, such as printing, spraying, etc. Particle coating over a droplet can significantly change the impact process…
We study the three-dimensional spontaneous flow transition of an active nematic in an infinite slab geometry using a combination of numerics and analytics. We show that it is determined by the interplay of two eigenmodes -- called S- and…
Microorganisms navigating through narrow spaces encounter significant hydrodynamic challenges. To overcome these constraints and sustain efficient motion, they employ adaptive strategies, including adaptive oscillatory body deformations.…
Motivated by studies suggesting that the patterns exhibited by the collectively expanding fronts of thin cells during the closing of a wound [Mark et al., Biophys. J., 98:361-370, 2010] and the shapes of single cells crawling on surfaces…
We perform dynamical simulations of a two-dimensional active nematic fluid in coexistence with an isotropic fluid. Drops of active nematic become elongated, and an effective anchoring develops at the nematic-isotropic interface. The…
Active emulsions can spontaneously form self-propelled droplets or phoretic micropumps. It has been predicted that the interaction with their self-generated chemical fields can lead to multistable higher-order flows and chemodynamic…