Spontaneous division and motility in active nematic droplets

Abstract

We investigate the mechanics of an active droplet endowed with internal nematic order and surrounded by an isotropic Newtonian fluid. Using numerical simulations we demonstrate that, due to the interplay between the active stresses and the defective geometry of the nematic director, this system exhibits two of the fundamental functions of living cells: spontaneous division and motility, by means of self-generated hydrodynamics flows. These behaviors can be selectively activated by controlling a single physical parameter, namely, an active variant of the capillary number.

5 pages, 3 figures

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Cited by in corpus (64)

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• Lattice Boltzmann Methods and Active Fluids
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• Design of nematic liquid crystals to control microscale dynamics
• Mechanics of motility initiation and motility arrest in crawling cells
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• Active phase separation: new phenomenology from non-equilibrium physics
• Data-driven discovery of active nematic hydrodynamics
• A mesoscopic field theoretical approach for active systems
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• Multiphase field models for collective cell migration
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• Mechanical stress as a regulator of cell motility
• Role of hydrodynamic flows in chemically driven droplet division
• Thin-Film Modelling of Resting and Moving Active Droplets
• Lamellar ordering, droplet formation and phase inversion in exotic active emulsions
• Tractionless Self-Propulsion of Active Drops
• Fingering Instability of Active Nematic Droplets
• Crawling in a fluid
• Designing, Synthesizing and Modeling Active Fluids
• Defect driven shapes in nematic droplets: analogies with cell division
• Active matter in a viscoelastic environment
• The crucial role of adhesion in the transmigration of active droplets through interstitial orifices
• Phase Separation Driven by Active Flows
• A Landau-de Gennes theory for hard colloidal rods: defects and tactoids
• How many ways a cell can move: the modes of self-propulsion of an active drop
• Defect order in active nematics on a curved surface
• Active nematics on flat surfaces: from droplet motility and scission to active wetting
• Asymmetric fluctuations and self-folding of active interfaces
• Mechanics and polarity in cell motility
• On an evolution equation in a cell motility model
• Trapping of swimmers in a vortex lattice
• Director alignment at the nematic-isotropic interface: elastic anisotropy and active anchoring
• Activity driven orientational order in active nematic liquid crystals on an anisotropic substrate
• Anchoring-driven spontaneous rotations in active gel droplets
• Chemo-mechanical model of a cell as a stochastic active gel
• Tuneable defect-curvature coupling and topological transitions in active shells
• Dynamics of a Passive Droplet in Active Turbulence
• Self-propulsion of active droplets without liquid-crystalline order
• Symmetry-breaking, motion and bistability of active drops through polarization-surface coupling
• Immersed Boundary Simulations of Active Fluid Droplets
• Active nematic gels as active relaxing solids
• Self-organization and shape change by active polarization in nematic droplets
• Colliding cells: when active segments behave as active particles
• Active gel segment behaving as an active particle
• Shapes and dynamic regimes of a polar active fluid droplet under confinement
• Self-propulsion of an active polar drop
• Cell motility as an energy minimization process
• Active fluids form system-spanning filamentary networks
• Phenomenological model of motility by spatiotemporal modulation of active interactions
• Phase Separation in Mixtures of Nematic and Isotropic Fluids
• Active nematic response to a deformable body or boundary: elastic deformations and anchoring-induced flow
• Motility and self propulsion of active droplets
• Active viscoelastic nematics with partial degree of order
• Initiation of motility on a compliant substrate