Related papers: Environmental Control of Self-Aligning Chiral Bris…

Chirality plays a crucial role in determining the structure of many systems in nature. Twisted or helical aggregates as a consequence of self-assembly can be seen in many biological and synthetic materials. Despite extensive theoretical and…

Synthetic active collectives, composed of many nonliving individuals capable of cooperative changes in group shape and dynamics, hold promise for practical applications and for the elucidation of guiding principles of natural collectives.…

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…

Models of active nematics in biological systems normally require complexity arising from the hydrodynamics involved at the microscopic level as well as the viscoelastic nature of the system. Here we show that a minimal, space-independent,…

We investigate the behavior of self-propelled particles under cyclic stretching, inspired by the characteristic pattern dynamics observed in microtubule (MT) motility assays subjected to uniaxial cyclic substrate stretching. We develop a…

While the collective motion of active particles has been studied extensively, effective strategies to navigate particle swarms without external guidance remain elusive. We introduce a method to control the trajectories of two-dimensional…

Dynamic processes of interacting units on a network are out of equilibrium in general. In the case of a directed tree, the dynamic cavity method provides an efficient tool that characterises the dynamic trajectory of the process for the…

In this study, we conduct experimental investigations on the behavior of confined self-propelled particles within a circular arena, employing small commercial robots capable of locomotion, communication, and information processing. These…

Variable stiffness is a key capability in biological and robotic systems, enabling adaptive interaction across tasks and environments. Mechanical metamaterials offer an alternative to conventional mechatronic solutions by encoding stiffness…

Active particles affect their environment as much as the environment affects their active motion. Here, we present an experimental system where both can be simultaneously adjusted in situ using an external AC electric field. The environment…

In many biological systems, the curvature of the surfaces cells live on influence their collective properties. Curvature should likewise influence the behavior of active colloidal particles. We show using molecular simulation of…

Active colloids self-organise to a variety of collective states, ranging from highly motile 'molecules' to complex 3D structures. Using large-scale simulations, we show that hydrodynamic interactions, together with a gravity-like aligning…

Active fluids are a class of non-equilibrium systems where energy is injected into the system continuously by the constituent particles themselves. Many examples, such as bacterial suspensions and actomyosin networks, are intrinsically…

We investigate the dynamics of passive particles immersed in a bath of chiral active particles, focusing on the emergence of collective rotational motion. Using numerical simulations, we show that passive particles aggregate into clusters…

A generalized theory of the self-limiting assembly of twisted bundles of filaments and columns is presented. Bundles and fibers form in a broad variety of supramolecular systems, from biological to synthetic materials. A widely-invoked…

Motility is a basic feature of living microorganisms, and how it works is often determined by environmental cues. Recent efforts have focused on develop- ing artificial systems that can mimic microorganisms, and in particular their…

When a solid body floats at the interface of a vibrating liquid bath, the relative motion between the object and interface generates outwardly propagating surface waves. It has recently been demonstrated that millimetric objects with…

Navigation of microorganisms is controlled by internal processes ultimately sensitive to mechanical or chemical signaling encountered along the path. In many natural environments, such as porous soils or physiological ducts, motile species…

Topological phenomena typically govern the behavior of delocalized waves, giving rise to robust transport in electronic, photonic, and mechanical systems. Whether similar principles can directly control the motion of a localized particle,…

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…