#SoftMatter have just published the [results](https://doi.org/10.1039/D2SM01188C) of a project that Renato Assante, Davide Marenduzzo, Alexander Morozov, and I recently worked on together! What did we do and what's new? Briefly...
The #hydrodynamic behaviour of inhomogeneous #activeNematic gels (such as extensile bundles of #cytoskeletal filaments or suspensions of low #ReynoldsNumber swimmers) can be described by the time evolution of three coupled #PDEs.
Standard #ActiveGel #theory concludes, from a #LinearStabilityAnalysis of these equations, that fluctuations in concentration don't significantly affect emergent #phaseBehaviour. However, this leaves #experimental #observations of visible inhomogeneities in #microtubule–#kinesin mixtures unexplained. As we move away from the passive (quiescent) regime, past the onset of #SpontaneousFlow, and deeper into the active phase, #nonlinearities become more important. What role do concentration inhomogeneities play here?
Alongside #analytic techniques, we used an in-house #MPI-parallel code developed within the #Dedalus #spectral framework to investigate. We predict a #novel regime of #spontaneous #microphaseSeparation into active (nematically ordered) and passive domains. In this regime, active flow arrests macrophase separation, which is itself driven by the thermodynamic coupling between active matter concentration and #nematic order. As a result, domains do not #coarsen past a typical size, which decreases with increasing activity. This regime is one part of the #PhaseDiagram we mapped out.
Along with our other findings, you can read all about it [here](https://doi.org/10.1039/D2SM01188C)!
#CahnHilliard #ActiveMatter #NavierStokes #BerisEdwards #CondensedMatter #PhaseTransitions #TheoreticalPhysics #BioPhysics #StatisticalPhysics #FluidDynamics #ComputationalPhysics #Simulation #FieldTheory #paperthread #NewPaper #science #research
