Related papers: Flow Coupling Alters Topological Phase Transition …
Spontaneous onset of a low temperature topologically ordered phase in a 2-dimensional (2D) lattice model of uniaxial liquid crystal (LC) was debated extensively pointing to a suspected underlying mechanism affecting the RG flow near the…
The temporal behaviors of non-Newtonian/Newtonian two-phase flows are closely tied to flow pattern formation mechanisms, influenced significantly by the non-Newtonian index, and exhibiting nonlinear rheological characteristics. The…
Topological defects play a central role in the formation and organization of various biological systems. Historically, such nonequilibrium defects have been mainly studied in the context of homogeneous active nematics. Phase-separated…
Recent experimental observations have suggested that topological defects can facilitate the creation of sharp features in developing embryos. Whereas these observations echo established knowledge about the interplay between geometry and…
We show that a fluid under strong spatially periodic confinement displays a glass transition within mode-coupling theory (MCT) at a much lower density than the corresponding bulk system. We use fluctuating hydrodynamics, with confinement…
We perform large-scale, numerically exact calculations on the two-dimensional interacting Fermi gas with a contact attraction. Reaching much larger lattice sizes and lower temperatures than previously possible, we determine systematically…
Active processes drive and guide biological dynamics across scales -- from subcellular cytoskeletal remodelling, through tissue development in embryogenesis, to population-level bacterial colonies expansion. In each of these, biological…
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…
Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless (BKT) transition is one of the instability mechanisms for the Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid. But in the BKT transition, there are logarithmic-correction problems, which make it very difficult to treat BKT…
The Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless (BKT) mechanism, building upon proliferation of topological defects in 2D systems, is the first example of phase transition beyond the Landau-Ginzburg paradigm of symmetry breaking. Such a topological…
We derive a multiphysics model that accounts for network elasticity with spontaneous strains, swelling and nematic interactions in liquid crystal gels (LCGs). We discuss the coupling among the various physical mechanisms, with particular…
We study the structure and morphological changes of fluids that are in contact with solid composites formed by alternating and microscopically wide stripes of two different materials. One type of the stripes interacts with the fluid via…
Motivated by recent experiments, the isotropic-nematic phase transition in chromonic liquid crystals is studied. As temperature decreases, nematic nuclei nucleate, grow, and coalesce, giving rise to tactoid microstructures in an isotropic…
The topological properties of many materials are central to their behavior, with the dynamics of topological defects being particularly important to intrinsically out-of-equilibrium, active materials. In this paper, local manipulation of…
Active nematic fluids exhibit complex dynamics in both bulk and in simple confining geometries. However, complex confining geometries could have substantial impact on active spontaneous flows. Using multiparticle collision dynamics…
We investigate energetically favorable configurations of point disclinations in nematic films having a bump geometry. Gradual expansion in the bump width {\Delta} gives rise to a sudden shift in the stable position of the disclinations from…
We consider the orientational instabilities, both homogeneous and spatially periodic, developing in a nematic liquid crystal under rectilinear oscillatory Couette flow for director alignment perpendicular to the flow plane. Using numerical…
Topological defects in nematically aligned cell populations play a critical role in modulating collective motion, from microbial colonies to epithelial tissues. Despite the potential of manipulating such topological defects to control…
We investigate channel-confined, nematic liquid crystals using the Beris-Edwards model of nematohydrodynamics. Using strong homeotropic anchoring at the walls, we find multistability i.e. multiple coexisting states where the uniform nematic…
Hydrodynamics of complex fuids with multiple order parameters is governed by a set of dynamic equations with many material constants, of which only some are easily measurable. We present a unique example of a dynamic magneto-optic coupling…