Shear flow induced isotropic to nematic transition in a suspension of active filaments

Abstract

We study the effects of externally applied shear flow on a model of suspensions of motors and filaments, via the equations of active hydrodynamics [PRL {\bf 89} (2002) 058101; {\bf 92} (2004) 118101]. In the absence of shear, the orientationally ordered phase of {\it both} polar and apolar active particles is always unstable at zero-wavenumber. An imposed steady shear large enough to overcome the active stresses stabilises both apolar and moving polar phases. Our work is relevant to {\it in vitro} studies of active filaments, the reorientation of endothelial cells subject to shear flow and shear-induced motility of attached cells.

8 pages, 4 figures submitted to Europhysics Letters

References in corpus (9)

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Cited by in corpus (10)

• The Mechanics and Statistics of Active Matter
• Shearing active gels close to the isotropic-nematic transition
• Brownian dynamics of a self-propelled particle in shear flow
• Emergent Structures in an Active Polar Fluid : dynamics of shape, scattering and merger
• Extended dynamical density functional theory for colloidal mixtures with temperature gradients
• Driven active and passive nematics
• Polarity patterns of stress fibers
• Spatio-temporal dynamics of an active, polar, viscoelastic ring
• Shear Induced Orientational Ordering in Active Glass
• Hydrodynamic bend instability of motile particles on a substrate