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Controlling Flow Speeds of Microtubule-Based 3D Active Fluids Using Temperature
Published on: November 26, 2019
Spontaneous circulation of confined active suspensions
Francis G Woodhouse1, Raymond E Goldstein
1Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, Centre for Mathematical Sciences, University of Cambridge, Wilberforce Road, Cambridge CB3 0WA, United Kingdom.
Abstract:
Many active fluid systems encountered in biology are set in total geometric confinement. Cytoplasmic streaming in plant cells is a prominent and ubiquitous example, in which cargo-carrying molecular motors move along polymer filaments and generate coherent cell-scale flow. When filaments are not fixed to the cell periphery, a situation found both in vivo and in vitro, we observe that the basic dynamics of streaming are closely related to those of a nonmotile stresslet suspension. Under this model, it is demonstrated that confinement makes possible a stable circulating state; a linear stability analysis reveals an activity threshold for spontaneous autocirculation. Numerical analysis of the longtime behavior reveals a phenomenon akin to defect separation in nematic liquid crystals and a high-activity bifurcation to an oscillatory regime.
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