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We study bisymmetric modes of angular wavenumber 2 for flat stellar disks in potentials with smooth cores. Stars either all circulate in the same direction or a small fraction may counter-rotate. The bisymmetric modes are unstable unless…
Liquid crystal elastomers contract along their director on heating and recover on cooling, offering great potential as actuators and artificial muscles. If a flat sheet is programmed with a spatially varying director pattern, it will…
Stars play a key role in the evolution of the Universe, as sources of radiation, as dynamical engines, and as chemical factories. Outputs of stellar models are then central to various studies in astrophysics. Stellar physics links…
The bacterial flagellar motor drives the rotation of flagellar filaments and enables many species of bacteria to swim. Torque is generated by interaction of stator units, anchored to the peptidoglycan cell wall, with the rotor. Recent…
We perform a theoretical study of the dynamics of the electric field excitations in a microtubule by taking into consideration the realistic cylindrical geometry, dipole-dipole interactions of the tubulin-based protein heterodimers, the…
Many cell functions are accomplished thanks to intracellular transport mechanisms of macromolecules along filaments. Molecular motors such as dynein or kinesin are proteins playing a primary role in these processes. The behavior of such…
Meso-scale turbulence was originally observed experimentally in various suspensions of swimming bacteria, as well as in the collective motion of active colloids. The corresponding large-scale dynamical patterns were reproduced in a simple…
A phenomenological description for active bundles of polar filaments is presented. The activity of the bundle results from crosslinks, that induce relative displacements between the aligned filaments. Our generic description is based on…
An actin filament contacting myosin molecules as a functional unit of muscle contraction induces magnetic dipoles along the filament when ATP molecules to be hydrolyzed are available there. The induced magnetic dipoles are coherent over the…
Molecular motors are macromolecular complexes which use some form of input energy to perform mechanical work. The filamentary tracks, on which these motors move, are made of either proteins (e.g., microtubules) or nucleic acids (DNA or…
Via large-scale molecular dynamics simulations, we observe the melting of a topological glass of stiff ring polymers by incorporating flexible ring polymers, along an isobaric path. As more flexible ring polymers are introduced, cluster…
Systems containing active components are intrinsically out of equilibrium, while binary mixtures reach their equilibrium configuration when complete phase separation is achieved. Active particles are found to stabilise non-equilibrium…
Traditionally, origami has been categorized into two groups according to their kinematics design: rigid and non-rigid origami. However, such categorization can be superficial, and rigid origami can obtain new mechanical properties by…
We show that atoms trapped in micro-cavities that interact via exchange of virtual photons can model an anisotropic Heisenberg spin-1/2 chain in an external magnetic field. All parameters of the effective Hamiltonian can individually be…
Multistability -- the emergence of multiple stable states under identical conditions -- is a hallmark of nonlinear complexity and an enabling mechanism for multilevel optical memory and photonic computing. Its realization in a compact…
Simulations and Mode-Coupling Theory calculations, for a large range of the arm number $f$ and packing fraction $\eta$ have shown that the structural arrest and the dynamics of star polymers in a good solvent are extremely rich: the systems…
Active colloids and externally actuated semi-flexible filaments provide basic building blocks for designing autonomously motile micro-machines. Here, we show that a passive semi-flexible filament can be actuated and transported by attaching…
A microtubule (MT) is a hollow tube of approximately 25 nm diameter. The two ends of the tube are dissimilar and are designated as `plus' and `minus' ends. Motivated by the collective push and pull exerted by a bundle of MTs during…
Active dynamic processes of cells are largely driven by the cytoskeleton, a complex and adaptable semiflexible polymer network, motorized by mechanoenzymes. Small dimensions, confined geome- tries and hierarchical structures make it…
We aim to identify the control principles governing the adaptable formation of non-equilibrium structures in actomyosin networks. We build a phenomenological model and predict that biasing the energy dissipated by molecular motors should…