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Topological structure and dynamics of three-dimensional active nematics
- Duclos, Guillaume;
- Adkins, Raymond;
- Banerjee, Debarghya;
- Peterson, Matthew SE;
- Varghese, Minu;
- Kolvin, Itamar;
- Baskaran, Arvind;
- Pelcovits, Robert A;
- Powers, Thomas R;
- Baskaran, Aparna;
- Toschi, Federico;
- Hagan, Michael F;
- Streichan, Sebastian J;
- Vitelli, Vincenzo;
- Beller, Daniel A;
- Dogic, Zvonimir
- et al.
Published Web Location
https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aaz4547Abstract
Topological structures are effective descriptors of the nonequilibrium dynamics of diverse many-body systems. For example, motile, point-like topological defects capture the salient features of two-dimensional active liquid crystals composed of energy-consuming anisotropic units. We dispersed force-generating microtubule bundles in a passive colloidal liquid crystal to form a three-dimensional active nematic. Light-sheet microscopy revealed the temporal evolution of the millimeter-scale structure of these active nematics with single-bundle resolution. The primary topological excitations are extended, charge-neutral disclination loops that undergo complex dynamics and recombination events. Our work suggests a framework for analyzing the nonequilibrium dynamics of bulk anisotropic systems as diverse as driven complex fluids, active metamaterials, biological tissues, and collections of robots or organisms.
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