期刊
NEW JOURNAL OF PHYSICS
卷 18, 期 -, 页码 -出版社
IOP Publishing Ltd
DOI: 10.1088/1367-2630/18/9/093006
关键词
active liquid crystals; Landau-de Gennes free-energy; Stokes flow
资金
- NSF Mathematical Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellowship [DMS-1400934]
- MIT Solomon Buchsbaum Fund Award
- Alfred P Sloan Research Fellowship
- Direct For Mathematical & Physical Scien
- Division Of Mathematical Sciences [1400934] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
ATP-driven microtubule-kinesin bundles can self-assemble into two-dimensional active liquid crystals (ALCs) that exhibit a rich creation and annihilation dynamics of topological defects, reminiscent of particle-pair production processes in quantum systems. This recent discovery has sparked considerable interest but a quantitative theoretical description is still lacking. We present and validate a minimal continuum theory for this new class of active matter systems by generalizing the classical Landau-de Gennes free-energy to account for the experimentally observed spontaneous buckling of motor-driven extensile microtubule bundles. The resulting model agrees with recently published data and predicts a regime of antipolar order. Our analysis implies that ALCs are governed by the same generic ordering principles that determine the non-equilibrium dynamics of dense bacterial suspensions and elastic bilayer materials. Moreover, the theory manifests an energetic analogy with strongly interacting quantum gases. Generally, our results suggest that complex nonequilibrium pattern-formation phenomena might be predictable from a few fundamental symmetry-breaking and scale-selection principles.
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