Live Soap: Order, Fluctuations and Instabilities in Active Smectics

Abstract

We construct a hydrodynamic theory of noisy, apolar active smectics, in bulk suspension or on a substrate. Our predictions include: quasi-long-ranged smectic order in dimension d = 2, and long- ranged in d = 3, extending previously published results to all dynamical regimes; Kosterlitz-Thouless melting to an active nematic at high and low concentrations in d = 2; nonzero second-sound speed parallel to the layers; the suppression of giant number fluctuations by smectic elasticity; instability to spontaneous undulation and flow in bulk contractile smectics; a layer spacing instability, possibly oscillatory, for large enough extensile active stresses.

5 pages, 1 figure, submitted to Phys Rev Lett

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Cited by in corpus (25)

• Active matter
• Scalar Active Mixtures: The Non-Reciprocal Cahn-Hilliard Model
• Minimal model of active colloids highlights the role of mechanical interactions in controlling the emergent behavior of active matter
• Hydrodynamics of Active Defects: from order to chaos to defect ordering
• Design of nematic liquid crystals to control microscale dynamics
• Antipolar ordering of topological defects in active liquid crystals
• Universality for Moving Stripes: A Hydrodynamic Theory of Polar Active Smectics
• Oriented Active Solids
• Hydrodynamic instabilities in active cholesteric liquid crystals
• Active cholesterics: odder than odd elasticity
• Emergent smectic order in simple active particle models
• Non-equilibrium structure and dynamics in a microscopic model of thin film active gels
• Active hydrodynamics of synchronization and ordering in moving oscillators
• Defect dynamics in active smectics induced by confining geometry and topology
• Smectic Layering: Landau theory for a complex-tensor order parameter
• Broken living layers: dislocations in active smectics
• Alignment Destabilizes Crystal Orders in Active Systems
• Active Nematic Multipoles: Flow Responses and the Dynamics of Defects and Colloids
• Chirality and odd mechanics in active columnar phases
• Stability of flocking in the reciprocal two-species Vicsek model: Effects of relative population, motility, and noise
• Collective dynamics of active filament complexes
• Gaussian theory for spatially distributed self-propelled particles
• Active smectics on a sphere
• Screw Symmetry, Chiral Hydrodynamics and Odd Instability in Active Cholesterics
• Phase transitions during fruiting body formation in Myxococcus xanthus