Related papers: Emergent dynamics of active elastic microbeams

We investigate theoretically the collective dynamics of soft active particles living in a viscous fluid. We focus on a minimal model for active but non-motile particles consisting of $N>1$ elastic dimers deformed by active stresses and…

Cells control fluid flows with a spatial and temporal precision that far exceeds the capabilities of current microfluidic technologies. Cells achieve this superior spatio-temporal control by harnessing dynamic networks of cytoskeleton and…

The field of active matter, and particularly active emulsions, is growing rapidly, with significant progress made recently on both theoretical and experimental fronts. Here, we summarize experimental research progress related to active…

Flexible mechanical metamaterials possess repeating structural motifs that imbue them with novel, exciting properties including programmability, anomalous elastic moduli and nonlinear and robust response. We address such structures via…

We discuss a class of models for particulate gels in which the particle contacts are described by an effective interaction combining a two-body attraction and a three-body angular repulsion. Using molecular dynamics, we show how varying the…

The cytoskeleton is a model active matter system that controls diverse cellular processes from division to motility. While both active actomyosin dynamics and actin-microtubule interactions are key to the cytoskeleton's versatility and…

Phase separation has emerged as an essential concept for the spatial organization inside biological cells. However, despite the clear relevance to virtually all physiological functions, we understand surprisingly little about what phases…

Flow networks are fundamental for understanding systems such as animal and plant vasculature or power distribution grids. These networks can encode, transmit, and transform information embodied in the spatial and temporal distribution of…

In complex crystals close to melting or at finite temperatures, different types of defects are ubiquitous and their role becomes relevant in the mechanical response of these solids. Conventional elasticity theory fails to provide a…

In equilibrium, the collective behaviour of particles interacting via steep, short-ranged potentials is well captured by the virial expansion of the free energy at low density. Here, we extend this approach beyond equilibrium to the case of…

Active crystals are highly ordered structures that emerge from the self-organization of motile objects, and have been widely studied in synthetic and bacterial active matter. Whether collective crystallization phenomena can occur in groups…

The design of artificial microswimmers is often inspired by the strategies of natural microorganisms. Many of these creatures exploit the fact that elasticity breaks the time-reversal symmetry of motion at low Reynolds numbers, but this…

Active matter locally converts chemical energy into mechanical work and, for this reason, it provides new mechanisms of pattern formation. In particular, active gels made of protein motors and filaments are far-from-equilibrium systems that…

A wide range of materials can exist in microscopically disordered solid forms, referred to as amorphous solids or glasses. Such materials -- oxide glasses and metallic glasses, to polymer glasses, and soft solids such as colloidal glasses,…

The cells and tissues that make up our body juggle contradictory mechanical demands. It is crucial for their survival to be able to withstand large mechanical loads, but it is equally crucial for them to produce forces and actively change…

The appearance of emergent symmetries in complex systems with components that can form composite units provides us with opportunities for design and control of exotic phase behaviour, for example by exploiting the dynamical symmetry…

Recent progress in approaches to determine the elastic constants of solids starting from the microscopic particle interactions is reviewed. On the theoretical side, density functional theory approaches are discussed and compared to more…

Material renewability in active living systems, such as in cells and tissues, can drive the large-scale patterning of forces, with distinctive phenotypic consequences. This is especially significant in the cell cytoskeleton, where multiple…

Robotic materials are multi-robot systems formulated to leverage the low-order computation and actuation of the constituents to manipulate the high-order behavior of the entire material. We study the behaviors of ensembles composed of smart…

We observe the emergence of a distinct, elasticity-driven flow state in a yield-stress fluid in the absence of inertia. Numerical simulations show that this elasto-plastic turbulent state is characterized by a broad spectrum of fluctuations…