Symbiotic Dynamics in Living Liquid Crystals
arXiv:2302.14818 · doi:10.1103/PhysRevE.108.024701
Abstract
An amalgamate of nematic liquid crystals and active matter, referred to as living liquid crystals, is a promising self-healing material with futuristic applications for targeted delivery of information and micro-cargo. We provide a phenomenological model to study the symbiotic pattern dynamics in this contemporary system using the Toner-Tu model for active matter (AM), the Landau-de Gennes free energy for liquid crystals (LCs), and an experimentally motivated coupling term that favours co-alignment of the active and nematic components. Our extensive theoretical studies unfold two novel steady states, chimeras and solitons, with sharp regions of distinct orientational order that sweep through the coupled system in synchrony. The induced dynamics in the passive nematic is unprecedented. We show that the symbiotic dynamics of the AM and LC components can be exploited to induce and manipulate order in an otherwise disordered system.
References in corpus (22)
- Novel type of phase transition in a system of self-driven particles
- Simulating Dynamical Features of Escape Panic
- Active Particles in Complex and Crowded Environments
- The Mechanics and Statistics of Active Matter
- Flocks, herds, and schools: A quantitative theory of flocking
- Chimera States for Coupled Oscillators
- Meso-scale turbulence in living fluids
- Freezing by Heating in a Driven Mesoscopic System
- Living Liquid Crystals
- Boltzmann and hydrodynamic description for self-propelled particles
- Hydrodynamic equations for self-propelled particles: microscopic derivation and stability analysis
- Command of active matter by topological defects and patterns
- An introduction to the Ginzburg-Landau theory of phase transitions and nonequilibrium patterns
- Fluctuations and Pattern Formation in Self-Propelled Particles
- Polar jets of swimming bacteria condensed by a patterned liquid crystal
- Invasion-wave induced first-order phase transition in systems of active particles
- Swarming in the Dirt: Ordered Flocks with Quenched Disorder
- Hydrodynamics defines the stable swimming direction of spherical squirmers in a nematic liquid crystal
- Hydrodynamic Theory of Flocking in the Presence of Quenched Disorder
- Tailored Morphologies in 2D Ferronematic Wells
- Magnetic Nanoparticles in a Nematic Channel: A One-Dimensional Study
- Slaved Coarsening in Ferronematics