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Far-from-equilibrium systems can form memories of previous deformations or driving. In systems from sheared glassy materials to buckling beams to crumpled sheets, this behavior is dominated by return-point memory, in which revisiting a past…
Rigidity is an emergent property of materials - it is not a feature of individual components that comprise the structure, but instead arises from interactions between many constituent parts. Recently, it has been recognized that…
The buckling of a soft elastic sample under growth or swelling has highlighted a new interest in materials science, morphogenesis, and biology or physiology. Indeed, the change of mass or volume is a common fact of any living species, and…
Cells move differently on substrates with different elasticities. In particular, the persistence time of their motion is higher on stiffer substrates. We show that this behavior will result in a net transport of cells directed up a…
We develop a microscopic picture of shear thickening in dense suspensions which emphasizes the role of frictional forces, coupling rotational and translational degrees of freedom. Simulations with contact forces and viscous drag only,…
We propose a spin model with quenched disorder which exhibits in slow driving two drastically different types of critical nonequilibrium steady states. One of them corresponds to classical criticality requiring fine-tuning of the disorder.…
Defect dynamics in a thin active nematic layer is studied by asymptotic matching of solutions in the defect core and the far field. The analysis is facilitated by the correspondence between the 2D nematic and complex scalar field models.…
Matrix stiffness expressions are derived for the particle movements in an assembly of rigid granules having compliant contacts. The derivations include stiffness terms that arise from the particle shapes at their contacts. These geometric…
We computationally study the frustrated magnetic configurations of a thin soft magnetic layer with the boundary condition fixed by underlying hard magnets. Driven by geometrical constraints and external magnetic field, transitions between…
Understanding the complex patterns in space-time exhibited by active systems has been the subject of much interest in recent times. Complementing this forward problem is the inverse problem of controlling active matter. Here we use optimal…
The motion of contaminant particles through complex environments such as fractured rocks or porous sediments is often characterized by anomalous diffusion: the spread of the transported quantity is found to grow sublinearly in time due to…
Scattering through natural porous formations (by far the most ubiquitous example of disordered media) represents a formidable tool to identify effective flow and transport properties. In particular, we are interested here in the scattering…
We investigate a quantum Heisenberg model with both antiferromagnetic and disordered nearest-neighbor couplings. We use an extended dynamical mean-field approach, which reduces the lattice problem to a self-consistent local impurity problem…
The natural impedance, or dynamic relationship between force and motion, of a human operator can determine the stability of exoskeletons that use interaction-torque feedback to amplify human strength. While human impedance is typically…
The fate of every eukaryotic cell subtly relies on the exceptional mechanical properties of microtubules. Despite significant efforts, understanding their unusual mechanics remains elusive. One persistent, unresolved mystery is the…
Locomotion via cyclic moves presents a challenge to mesoscopic objects in overdamped environments, where time reversibility may prevent directed motion. Most reported cyclic movers exploit anisotropic drag to push themselves forward. Under…
A model of an elastic manifold driven through a random medium by an applied force F is studied focussing on the effects of inertia and elastic waves, in particular {\it stress overshoots} in which motion of one segment of the manifold…
A wide range of disordered materials, from biological to geological assemblies, feature discrete elements undergoing large shape changes. How significant geometrical variations at the microscopic scale affect the response of the assembly,…
To understand how spatiotemporal chaos may modify material transport, we use direct numerical simulations of the three-dimensional Boussinesq equations and of an advection-diffusion equation to study the transport of a passive tracer by the…
Rush hour and sustained traffic flows in eight cities are studied using the IBM Mega Traffic Simulator to understand the importance of road structures and vehicle acceleration in the prevention of gridlock. Individual cars among the tens of…