Differential-activity driven instabilities in biphasic active matter

Abstract

Active stresses can cause instabilities in contractile gels and living tissues. Here we describe a generic hydrodynamic theory that treats these systems as a mixture of two phases of varying activity and different mechanical properties. We find that differential activity between the phases provides a mechanism causing a demixing instability. We follow the nonlinear evolution of the instability and characterize a phase diagram of the resulting patterns. Our study complements other instability mechanisms in mixtures such as differential growth, shape, motion or adhesion.

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Cited by in corpus (7)

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• Theory of mechano-chemical patterning in biphasic biological tissues
• Nonreciprocal pattern formation of conserved fields
• Traveling waves at the surface of active liquid crystals
• Oscillatory motion of a droplet in an active poroelastic two-phase model
• Phase Ordering in Binary Mixtures of Active Nematic Fluids
• A computational model of self-organized shape dynamics of active surfaces in fluids