Defect Line Coarsening and Refinement in Active Nematics

Abstract

Active matter is naturally out of equilibrium which results in the emergence of diverse dynamic steady states, including the omnipresent chaotic state known as the active turbulence. However, much less is known how active systems dynamically depart out of these configurations, such as get excited or damped to a different dynamic steady state. In this Letter, we demonstrate the coarsening and refinement dynamics of topological defect lines in three-dimensional active nematic turbulence. Specifically, using theory and numerical modelling, we are able to predict the evolution of the active defect density away from the steady state due to time-dependent activity or viscoelastic material properties, establishing a single length scale phenomenological description of defect line coarsening/refinement in a three-dimensional active nematic. The approach is first applied to growth dynamics of a single active defect loop, and then to a full three-dimensional active defect network. More generally, this work provides insight into the general coarsening phenomena between dynamical regimes in 3D active matter, with a possible analogy in other physical systems.

11 pages, 4 figures in the main text and 5 figures in the SI

References in corpus (12)

• Motility-Induced Phase Separation
• Spontaneous motion in hierarchically assembled active matter
• Meso-scale turbulence in living fluids
• Defect dynamics in active nematics
• Spontaneous Circulation of Confined Active Suspensions
• Motility-induced phase separation and coarsening in active matter
• Rotation and propulsion in 3d active chiral droplets
• Multi-scale statistics of turbulence motorized by active matter
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• Aspects of the density field in an active nematic
• Stretching and Kibble scaling regimes for Hubble-damped defect networks
• Relaxation in a Phase-separating Two-dimensional Active Matter System with Alignment Interaction

Cited by in corpus (10)

• Spontaneous Self-Constraint in Active Nematic Flows
• Tuneable defect-curvature coupling and topological transitions in active shells
• Chirality, anisotropic viscosity and elastic anisotropy in three-dimensional active nematic turbulence
• Coexistence of defect morphologies in three dimensional active nematics
• Analytical model for the motion and interaction of two-dimensional active nematic defects
• Nematic liquid crystal flow driven by time-varying active surface anchoring
• Vortex line entanglement in active Beltrami flows
• Simulations of Three-dimensional Nematic Guidance of Microswimmers
• Orientational order and topological defects in a dilute solutions of rodlike polymers at low Reynolds number
• Symmetry and Thermodynamic Bounds on Cross-Coupling Transport in Chiral Liquid Crystals