| 02/2024 Nonreciprocal collective dynamics in a mixture of phoretic Janus colloids Gennaro Tucci et al. A multicomponent mixture of Janus colloids with distinct catalytic coats and phoretic mobilities is a promising theoretical system to explore the collective behavior arising from nonreciprocal interactions. An active colloid produces (or consumes) chemicals, self-propels, drifts along chemical gradients, and rotates its intrinsic polarity to align with a gradient. As a result the connection from m … |
| 02/2024 Bringing together two paradigms of non-equilibrium: Driven dynamics of aging systems Diego Tapias et al. There are two fundamental paradigms for non-equilibrium dynamics: on the one hand, aging towards an equilibrium state that cannot be reached on reasonable timescales; on the other, external driving that can lead to non-equilibrium steady states. We explore how these two mechanisms interact, by studying the behaviour of trap models, which are paradigmatic descriptions of slow glassy dynamics, when … |
| 02/2024 Controlling flow patterns and topology in active emulsions Giuseppe Negro et al. Active emulsions and liquid crystalline shells are intriguing and experimentally realisable types of topological matter. Here we numerically study the morphology and spatiotemporal dynamics of a double emulsion, where one or two passive small droplets are embedded in a larger active droplet. We find activity introduces a variety of rich and nontrivial nonequilibrium states in the system. First, a … |
| 01/2024 Challenges in the rheology of glasses Peter Sollich et al. In this contribution to the proceedings of the 29th Solvay Conference on Physics I will give an overview of some key challenges in our theoretical understanding of the rheology of glasses, focussing on (i) steady shear flow curves and their relation to the glass and jamming transitions, (ii) ductile versus brittle yielding in shear startup and (iii) yielding under oscillatory shear. I will also br … |
| 01/2024 Anomalous fluctuations in a droplet of chemically active colloids or enzymes K. R. Prathyusha et al. Chemically active colloids or enzymes cluster into dense droplets driven by their phoretic response to collectively generated chemical gradients. Employing Brownian dynamics simulation techniques, our study of the dynamics of such a chemically active droplet uncovers a rich variety of structures and dynamical properties, including the full range of fluid-like to solid-like behaviour, and non-Gauss … |
| 12/2023 Topological spectra and entropy of chromatin loop networks Andrea Bonato et al. The 3D folding of a mammalian gene can be studied by a polymer model, where the chromatin fibre is represented by a semiflexible polymer which interacts with multivalent proteins, representing complexes of DNA-binding transcription factors and RNA polymerases. This physical model leads to the natural emergence of clusters of proteins and binding sites, accompanied by the folding of chromatin into … |
| 12/2023 Combinatorics and topological weights of chromatin loop networks Andrea Bonato et al. Polymer physics models suggest that chromatin spontaneously folds into loop networks with transcription units (TUs), such as enhancers and promoters, as anchors. Here we use combinatoric arguments to enumerate the emergent chromatin loop networks, both in the case where TUs are labelled and where they are unlabelled. We then combine these mathematical results with those of computer simulations aim … |
| 12/2023 Purely elastic turbulence in pressure-driven channel flows Martin Lellep et al. Solutions of long, flexible polymer molecules are complex fluids that simultaneously exhibit fluid-like and solid-like behaviour. When subjected to an external flow, dilute polymer solutions exhibit elastic turbulence – a unique, chaotic flow state absent in Newtonian fluids, like water. Unlike its Newtonian counterpart, elastic turbulence is caused by polymer molecules stretching and aligning in … |
| 11/2023 Diffusive evaporation dynamics in polymer solutions is ubiquitous Max Huisman et al. Recent theory and experiments have shown how the buildup of a high-concentration polymer layer at a one-dimensional solvent-air interface can lead to an evaporation rate that scales with time as $t^{-1/2}$ and that is insensitive to the ambient humidity. Using phase field modelling we show that this scaling law constitutes a naturally emerging robust regime, Diffusion-Limited Evaporation (DLE). Th … |
| 11/2023 Multifractality and statistical localization in highly heterogeneous random networks Diego Tapias et al. We consider highly heterogeneous random networks with symmetric interactions in the limit of high connectivity. A key feature of this system is that the spectral density of the corresponding ensemble exhibits a divergence within the bulk. We study the structure of the eigenvectors associated with this divergence and find that they are multifractal with the statistics of eigenvector elements matchi … |