Related papers: Soft and non-soft structural transitions in disord…
The mechanics of disordered fibrous networks such as those that make up the extracellular matrix are strongly dependent on the local connectivity or coordination number. For biopolymer networks this coordination number is typically between…
We study the stress distribution in a polymer brush material over a range of graft densities using molecular dynamics (MD) simulations and theory. Flexible polymer chains are treated as beads connected by nonlinear springs governed by a…
In molecular dynamics simulations of soft glass-formers interacting via repulsions, we find that the glass transition temperature, dynamical heterogeneity, and glass fragility reach their maxima at the same crossover pressure $P_d$. Our…
Semiflexible polymers are widely used as a paradigm for understanding structural phases in biomolecules including folding of proteins. Here, we compare bead-spring and bead-stick variants of coarse-grained semiflexible polymer models that…
An electron nematic is a translationally invariant state which spontaneously breaks the discrete rotational symmetry of a host crystal. In a clean square lattice, the electron nematic has two preferred orientations, while dopant disorder…
Disordered networks of semiflexible filaments are common support structures in biology. Familiar examples include fibrous matrices in blood clots, bacterial biofilms, and essential components of cells and tissues of plants, animals, and…
Multiple polymer networks, such as double-network elastomers comprising a sacrificial and a matrix network, exhibit exceptional mechanical resilience, commonly attributed to the formation of an extended damage zone before a crack can grow.…
We introduce an extension of the non-equilibrium dynamical mean field theory to incorporate the effects of static random disorder in the dynamics of a many-particle system by integrating out different disorder configurations resulting in an…
These notes are devoted to the statistical mechanics of directed polymers interacting with one-dimensional spatial defects. We are interested in particular in the situation where frozen disorder is present. These polymer models undergo a…
A unidirectional "density" wave order in an otherwise isotropic environment is guaranteed to display a smecticlike Goldstone mode. Examples of such "soft" states include conventional smectic liquid crystals, putative…
Electronic nematicity in iron pnictide materials is coupled to both the lattice and the conducting electrons, which allows both structural and transport observables to probe nematic fluctuations and the order parameter. Here we combine…
We study a disordered network of bistable bonds subjected to periodic strain. The model is inspired by experiments on crumpled sheets and it features behaviors associated with glasses, including a complex energy landscape, memories, and…
We investigate wrinkling of two-dimensional random and triangular semiflexible polymer networks under shear. Both types of semiflexible networks exhibit wrinkling above a small critical shear angle, which scales with an exponent of the…
The nematic electronic state and its associated nematic critical fluctuations have emerged as potential candidates for superconducting pairing in various unconventional superconductors. However, in most materials their coexistence with…
Nematic liquid crystals exhibit both crystal-like and fluid-like features. In particular, the propagation of an acoustic wave shows an unexpected occurrence of some of the solid-like features at the hydrodynamic level, namely, the…
Polymerization and formation of crosslinked polymer networks are important processes in manufacturing, materials fabrication, and in the case of hydrated polymer networks, synthesis of biomedical materials, drug delivery, and tissue…
The twist-bend nematic phase (NTB) is characterized by a conically twisting director and by a dramatic softening of the bend elastic constant before the transition to NTB phase. In the recently found splay nematic phase (NS) the splay…
A widely-studied model for gels or biopolymeric fibrous materials are networks with central force interactions, such as Hookean springs. Less commonly studied are materials whose mechanics are dominated by non-central force interactions…
Based on a mesoscopic theory we investigate the non-equilibrium dynamics of a sheared nematic liquid, with the control parameter being the shear stress $\sigma_{\mathrm{xy}}$ (rather than the usual shear rate, $\dot\gamma$). To this end we…
While polymer solutions lack the mechanical stability only transiently cross-linked networks can fulfill the competing requirements of structural stability and maximal energy dissipation. Here, we show that transient cross-links entail…