Dynamics of individual active elastic filaments with chiral self-propulsion

Abstract

We study the over-damped dynamics of individual one-dimensional elastic filaments subjected to a chiral active force which propels each point of the filament at a fixed angle relative to the tangent vector of the filament at that point. Such a model is a reasonable starting point for describing the behavior of polymers such as microtubules in gliding assay experiments. We derive sixth-order nonlinear coupled partial differential equations for the intrinsic properties of the filament, namely, its curvature and metric, and show that these equations are capable of supporting multiple different stationary solutions in a co-moving frame, i.e.\ that chiral active elastic filaments exhibit dynamic multi-stability in their shapes. A linear stability analysis of these solutions is carried out to determine which solutions are stable and a brief analysis of the time-dependent approach to stationary shape is considered. Finally, simulations are presented which confirm many of our predictions while also revealing additional complexity.

19 pages, 7 figures. Supplementary Movie available at https://pages.jh.edu/dbeller3/resources/SI-Videos/Steinbock-2026/

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