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Updated: Jan 20, 2026

Forming, Confining, and Observing Microtubule-Based Active Nematics
Published on: January 13, 2023
Deviations from Blob Scaling Theory for Active Brownian Filaments Confined Within Cavities
S Das1, A Cacciuto1
1Department of Chemistry, Columbia University 3000 Broadway, New York, New York 10027, USA.
Abstract:
Scaling arguments used to predict the radius of gyration of passive self-avoiding flexible polymers have been shown to hold for polymers under the influence of active fluctuations. In this Letter, we establish how the standard blob scaling theory representation of a polymer, capable of capturing the essential physics of passive polymers under a variety of settings, breaks down when dealing with active polymers under confinement. Using numerical simulations, we show how the predicted exponents associated to the forces applied by a polymer when restricted within cavities of different geometries hold only whenever the persistence length generated on the polymer by the active forces is much smaller than the size of the characteristic blob in the scaling theory.
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