Active Spaghetti: Collective Organization in Cyanobacteria
arXiv:2301.11667 · doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.131.158303
Abstract
Filamentous cyanobacteria can show fascinating examples of nonequilibrium self-organization, which however are not well-understood from a physical perspective. We investigate the motility and collective organization of colonies of these simple multicellular lifeforms. As their area density increases, linear chains of cells gliding on a substrate show a transition from an isotropic distribution to bundles of filaments arranged in a reticulate pattern. Based on our experimental observations of individual behavior and pairwise interactions, we introduce a nonreciprocal model accounting for the filaments' large aspect ratio, fluctuations in curvature, motility, and nematic interactions. This minimal model of active filaments recapitulates the observations, and rationalizes the appearance of a characteristic lengthscale in the system, based on the Peclet number of the cyanobacteria filaments.
arXiv comment10 pages, 10 figures
References in corpus (22)
- Novel type of phase transition in a system of self-driven particles
- The Mechanics and Statistics of Active Matter
- Spontaneous motion in hierarchically assembled active matter
- Physics of Microswimmers - Single Particle Motion and Collective Behavior
- Hydrodynamic fluctuations and instabilities in ordered suspensions of self-propelled particles
- Non-reciprocal phase transitions
- Odd elasticity
- Self-Propelled Rods: Insights and Perspectives for Active Matter
- Self-propelled Worm-like Filaments: Spontaneous Spiral Formation, Structure, and Dynamics
- The physics of active polymers and filaments
- Globule-like conformation and enhanced diffusion of active polymers
- Long-range nematic order and anomalous fluctuations in suspensions of swimming filamentous bacteria
- Collective Motion of Self-Propelled Particles with Memory
- Collective Dynamics of Self-propelled Semiflexible Filaments
- Dynamically Generated Patterns in Dense Suspensions of Active Filaments
- Active Curved Polymers form Vortex Patterns on Membranes
- Structure and dynamics of a self-propelled semiflexible filament
- \textit{C. elegans} collectively forms dynamical networks
- Structural mechanics of filamentous cyanobacteria
- Emergent probability fluxes in confined microbial navigation
- Statistical properties of a tangentially driven active filament
- Model of metameric locomotion in active directional filaments