Related papers: Geometrically-controlled twist transitions in nema…
The origin of rigidity in disordered materials is an outstanding open problem in statistical physics. Previously, a class of 2D cellular models has been shown to undergo a rigidity transition controlled by a mechanical parameter that…
How do cells tune emergent properties at the scale of tissues? One class of such emergent behaviors are rigidity transitions, in which a tissue changes from a solid-like to a fluid-like state or vice versa. Here, we introduce a new way for…
A tilting phase transition is predicted for systems comprising rod like molecules which are irreversibly grafted to a flat surface, so that the non interacting rods are perpendicularly oriented. The transition is controlled by the grafting…
We study the surface fluctuations of a tissue with a dynamics dictated by cell-rearrangement, cell-division, and cell-death processes. Surface fluctuations are calculated in the homeostatic state, where cell division and cell death…
Curvature and mechanics are intimately connected for thin materials, and this coupling between geometry and physical properties is readily seen in folded structures from intestinal villi and pollen grains, to wrinkled membranes and…
Biological cells can actively tune their intracellular architecture according to their overall shape. Here we explore the rheological implication of such coupling in a minimal model of a dense cellular material where each cell exerts an…
The conditions under which biological cells switch from a static to a motile state are fundamental to the understanding of many healthy and pathological processes. In this paper, we show that even in the presence of a fully symmetric…
The mechanical properties of cells, which influence the properties of the tissue they belong to, are controlled by various mechanisms. Bi et al. theoretically demonstrated that density-independent rigidity transition occurs in…
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…
The critical behavior at the transition from uniform nematic to twist-bend modulated nematic phase is revealed and shown to be well explained by the mean field approximation. The study was performed on a group of materials that exhibit an…
Using a minimal continuum model, we investigate the interplay between circular confinement and substrate friction in active nematics. Upon increasing the friction from low to high, we observe a dynamical phase transition from a circulating…
A self-interacting polymer can undergo an orientational ordering transition, depending on the magnitude of the nematic interaction. The effect of embedding such a polymer into a flexible surface on this transition is studied on the…
We study the finite-temperature dynamics of thin elastic sheets in a single-clamped cantilever configuration. This system is known to exhibit a tilt transition at which the preferred mean plane of the sheet shifts from horizontal to a plane…
The anchoring of nematic liquid crystals on surfaces with grafted liquid crystalline chain molecules is studied by computer simulations and within a mean field approach. The computer simulations show that a swollen layer of collectively…
Cell division and death can be regulated by the mechanical forces within a tissue. We study the consequences for the stability and roughness of a propagating interface, by analysing a model of mechanically-regulated tissue growth in the…
The effect of confinement on the orientational structure of a nematic liquid crystal model has been investigated by using a version of density-functional theory (DFT). We have focused on the case of a nematic confined by opposing flat…
An interface description and numerical simulations of model A kinetics are used for the first time to investigate the intra-surface kinetics of phase ordering on corrugated surfaces. Geometrical dynamical equations are derived for the…
We use linear stability analysis and hybrid lattice Boltzmann simulations to study the dynamical behaviour of an active nematic confined in a channel made of viscoelastic material. We find that the quiescent, ordered active nematic is…
We investigate the turbulent dynamics of a two-dimensional active nematic liquid crystal con- strained on a curved surface. Using a combination of hydrodynamic and particle-based simulations, we demonstrate that the fundamental structural…
Rigidity transitions in simple models of confluent cells have been a powerful organizing principle in understanding the dynamics and mechanics of dense biological tissue. In this work we explore the interplay between geometry and rigidity…