Mesoscopic Simulations of Active-Nematics

Abstract

Coarse-grained, mesoscale simulations are invaluable for studying soft condensed matter because of their ability to model systems in which a background solvent plays a significant role but is not the primary interest. Such methods generally model passive solvents; however, far-from-equilibrium systems may also be composed of complex solutes suspended in an active fluid. Yet, few coarse-grained simulation methods exist to model an active medium. We introduce an algorithm to simulate active nematics, which builds on multi-particle collision dynamics (MPCD) for passive fluctuating nematohydrodynamics by introducing dipolar activity in the local collision operator. Active-nematic MPCD (AN-MPCD) simulations exhibit the key characteristics of active nematic turbulence but, as a particle-based algorithm, also reproduce crucial attributes of active particle models. Thus, mesoscopic AN-MPCD is an approach that bridges microscopic and continuum descriptions, allowing novel simulations of composite active-passive systems.

16 pages, 13 figures

References in corpus (13)

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Cited by in corpus (5)

• Collective mechano-response dynamically tunes cell-size distributions in growing bacterial colonies
• Active turbulence and spontaneous phase separation in inhomogeneous extensile active gels
• The importance of being discrete -- An agent-based model for active nematics and more
• Simulations of Three-dimensional Nematic Guidance of Microswimmers
• Active nematics in corrugated channels