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Anomalous discontinuity at the percolation critical point of active gels
M Sheinman1,2, A Sharma1, J Alvarado3,4
1Department of Physics and Astronomy, VU University, 1081 HV Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Abstract:
We develop a percolation model motivated by recent experimental studies of gels with active network remodeling by molecular motors. This remodeling was found to lead to a critical state reminiscent of random percolation (RP), but with a cluster distribution inconsistent with RP. Our model not only can account for these experiments, but also exhibits an unusual type of mixed phase transition: We find that the transition is characterized by signatures of criticality, but with a discontinuity in the order parameter.
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