Solid-liquid transition induced by rigidity disparity in a binary mixture of cell tissues

Area of Science:

• Soft Matter Physics
• Materials Science
• Computational Biology

Background:

• Understanding solid-liquid transitions is crucial in various physical and biological systems.
• Binary mixtures introduce complexity due to differing component properties, such as rigidity.
• Rigidity disparity in cellular systems can significantly alter phase behavior.

Purpose of the Study:

• To numerically investigate the two-dimensional melting of binary cell tissue mixtures.
• To explore the influence of rigidity disparity on solid-liquid transitions.
• To map the melting phase diagrams of such systems.

Main Methods:

• Utilized a Voronoi-based cellular model for numerical simulations.
• Investigated systems at both zero and finite temperatures.
• Analyzed phase transitions including solid-hexatic and hexatic-liquid.

Main Results:

• Rigidity disparity was found to induce solid-liquid transitions at both zero and finite temperatures.
• At zero temperature, continuous solid-hexatic and hexatic-liquid transitions occur for zero disparity, while finite disparity leads to a discontinuous hexatic-liquid transition.
• At finite temperature, melting proceeds via a continuous solid-hexatic transition followed by a discontinuous hexatic-liquid transition.

Conclusions:

• The study successfully mapped melting phase diagrams for binary cell mixtures with rigidity disparity.
• Rigidity disparity plays a key role in determining the nature and sequence of phase transitions.
• Findings contribute to the fundamental understanding of phase transitions in complex multi-component soft matter systems.