Chaithanya, K.V.S. orcid.org/0000-0003-0917-5619, Ardaševa, A. orcid.org/0000-0002-7438-7493, Meacock, O.J. orcid.org/0000-0001-6269-9855 et al. (3 more authors) (2024) Transport of topological defects in a biphasic mixture of active and passive nematic fluids. Communications Physics, 7 (1). 302. ISSN 2399-3650
Abstract
Collectively moving cellular systems often contain a proportion of dead cells or non-motile genotypes. When mixed, nematically aligning motile and non-motile agents are known to segregate spontaneously. However, the role that topological defects and active stresses play in shaping the distribution of the two phases remains unresolved. In this study, we investigate the behaviour of a two-dimensional binary mixture of active and passive nematic fluids to understand how topological defects are transported between the two phases and, ultimately, how this leads to the segregation of topological charges. When the activity of the motile phase is large, and the tension at the interface of motile and non-motile phases is weak, we find that the active phase tends to accumulate +1/2 defects and expel −1/2 defects so that the motile phase develops a net positive charge. Conversely, when the activity of the motile phase is comparatively small and interfacial tension is strong, the opposite occurs so that the active phase develops a net negative charge. We then use these simulations to develop a physical intuition of the underlying processes that drive the charge segregation. Lastly, we quantify the sensitivity of this process on the other model parameters, by exploring the effect that anchoring strength, orientational elasticity, friction, and volume fraction of the motile phase have on topological charge segregation. As +1/2 and −1/2 defects have very different effects on interface morphology and fluid transport, this study offers new insights into the spontaneous pattern formation that occurs when motile and non-motile cells interact.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s) 2024. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this licence to share adapted material derived from this article or parts of it. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/bync-nd/4.0/. |
Keywords: | Biological physics; Liquid crystals |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Science (Sheffield) > Department of Physics and Astronomy (Sheffield) The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Science (Sheffield) > School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 09 Sep 2024 15:05 |
Last Modified: | 09 Sep 2024 15:05 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Springer Science and Business Media LLC |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1038/s42005-024-01792-6 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:217010 |