Non-equilibrium structure and relaxation in active microemulsions

Abstract

Microphase separation is common in active biological systems as exemplified by the separation of RNA and DNA-rich phases in the cell nucleus driven by the transcriptional activity of polymerase enzymes acting similarly to amphiphiles in a microemulsion. Here we propose an analytically tractable model of an active microemulsion to investigate how the activity affects its structure and relaxation dynamics. Continuum theory derived from a lattice model exhibits two distinct regimes of the relaxation dynamics and is linked to the broken detailed balance due to intermittent activity of the amphiphiles.

5 pages, 4 figures, supplementary material

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