#SoftMatter have just published the results 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…
#Microswimmer suspensions behave in a similar way to fluids containing kinesin and microtubules. Both systems can be described by the same system of three coupled nonlinear #PDEs.
A #LinearStabilityAnalysis of these equations suggests that variations in concentration across the system don’t significantly affect emergent #phaseBehaviour. How then can we explain #experiments that show visible inhomogeneities in #microtubule–#kinesin mixtures, for instance?
With increasing activity, we move away from the quiescent regime, past the onset of #SpontaneousFlow, and deeper into the active phase, where #nonlinearities become more important. What role do concentration inhomogeneities play here?
We investigated these questions, taking advantage of the #openSource #Dedalus #spectral framework to simulate the full nonlinear time evolution. This led us to predict a #novel regime of #spontaneous #microphaseSeparation into active (nematically ordered) and passive domains.
Active flow arrests macrophase separation in this regime, counteracting domain coarsening due to thermodynamic coupling between active matter concentration and #nematic order. As a result, domains reach a characteristic size that 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!
low #ReynoldsNumber #turbulence #ActiveTurbulence #CahnHilliard #ActiveMatter #NavierStokes #BerisEdwards #CondensedMatter #PhaseTransitions #TheoreticalPhysics #BioPhysics #StatisticalPhysics #FluidDynamics #ComputationalPhysics #Simulation #FieldTheory #paperthread #NewPaper #science #research #ActiveGel #activeNematic #analytic #cytoskeleton #hydrodynamics #MPI #theory
