Related papers: Anisotropic and Heterogeneous Polymerized Membrane…
Recently, clustering of inertial particles in turbulence has been thoroughly analyzed for statistically homogeneous isotropic flows. Phenomenologically, spatial homogeneity of particles configurations is broken by the advection of a range…
The low-temperature thermal and transport properties of an unusual kind of crystal exhibiting minimal molecular positional and tilting disorder have been measured. The material, namely, low-dimensional, highly anisotropic…
The vibrational dynamics of a model polymer glass is studied by Molecular Dynamics simulations. The focus is on the "soft" monomers with high participation to the lower-frequency vibrational modes contributing to the thermodynamic anomalies…
Hydrogels of semiflexible biopolymers such as collagen have been shown to contract axially under shear strain, in contrast to the axial dilation observed for most elastic materials. Recent work has shown that this behavior can be understood…
Many lipid membrane-mediated transport processes--such as mechanically-gated channel activation and solute transport--involve structural and dynamical features on membrane thickness length scales. Most existing membrane models, however,…
Turbulent mixing is studied in the Lagrangian framework with an approach based on the complex network formalism. We consider the motion of passive, noninertial particles inside a turbulent channel simulated at $Re_{\tau} = 950$. The…
Whether live cell membranes show miscibility phase transitions (MPTs), and if so, how they fluctuate near the transitions remain outstanding unresolved issues in physics and biology alike. Motivated by these questions we construct a generic…
Starting from the hypothesis that the tubulin dimer is a conformationally bistable molecule - fluctuating between a curved and a straight configuration at room temperature - we develop a model for polymorphic dynamics of the microtubule…
Biological membranes undergo noticeable thermal fluctuations at physiological temperatures. When two membranes approach each other, they hinder the out of plane fluctuations of the other. This hindrance leads to an entropic repulsive force…
Lipid structures exhibit complex and highly dynamic lateral structure; and changes in lipid density and fluidity are believed to play an essential role in membrane targeting and function. The dynamic structure of liquids on the molecular…
We present a theory of the elasticity and fluctuations of the Smectic A and C phases in uniaxial, anisotropic disordered environments, e.g., stretched aerogel. We find that, bizarrely, the low-temperature, lower-symmetry Smectic $C$ phase…
The isothermal compressibility (i.e., the asymptotic number variance) of equilibrium liquid water as a function of temperature is minimal near ambient conditions. This anomalous non-monotonic temperature dependence is due to a balance…
Understanding how topological constraints affect the dynamics of polymers in solution is at the basis of any polymer theory and it is particularly needed for melts of rings. These polymers fold as crumpled and space-filling objects and,…
Microphase separation of membrane components is thought to play an important role in many physiological processes, from cell signaling to endocytosis and cellular trafficking. Here, we study how variations in the membrane composition can be…
By taking advantage of the molecular weight dependence of the glass transition of polymers and their ability to form perfectly miscible blends, we propose a way to modify the fragility of a system, from fragile to strong, keeping the same…
We revisit the universal behavior of crystalline membranes at and below the crumpling transition, which pertains to the mechanical properties of important soft and hard matter materials, such as the cytoskeleton of red blood cells or…
Using experimental longitudinal and transverse velocities data for very high Reynolds number turbulence, we study both anisotropy and asymmetry of turbulence. These both seem to be related to small scale turbulent structures, and to…
Confinement can modify the dynamics, the thermodynamics and the structural properties of liquid water, the prototypical anomalous liquid. By considering a general anomalous liquid, suitable for globular proteins, colloids or liquid metals,…
We carry out a detailed deuterium NMR study of local nematic ordering in polydomain nematic elastomers. This system has a close analogy to the random-anisotropy spin glass. We find that, in spite of the quadrupolar nematic symmetry in…
We extend our analysis of a IIB supergravity solution dual to a spatially anisotropic finite-temperature N=4 super Yang-Mills plasma. The solution is static, possesses an anisotropic horizon, and is completely regular. The full geometry can…