Nonequilibrium Structure and Relaxation in Active Microemulsions
Rakesh Chatterjee1,2, Hui-Shun Kuan1,2,3, Frank Jülicher4,5,6
1Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Department of Biology, Erlangen, Germany.
Abstract:
Microphase separation is common in active biological systems as exemplified by the separation of RNA- and DNA-rich phases in the cell nucleus driven by the transcriptional activity of polymerase enzymes acting similarly to amphiphiles in a microemulsion. Here we propose an analytically tractable model of an active microemulsion to investigate how the activity affects its structure and relaxation dynamics. Continuum theory derived from a lattice model exhibits two distinct regimes of the relaxation dynamics and is linked to the broken detailed balance due to intermittent activity of the amphiphiles.
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