Tunable glassy dynamics in models of dense cellular tissue

Area of Science:

• Soft Matter Physics
• Biophysics
• Materials Science

Background:

• Dense cellular tissues exhibit complex collective behaviors, often modeled using geometric approaches.
• Previous studies identified anomalous sub-Arrhenius scaling in the dynamics of these models with temperature.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the anomalous dynamics in dense cellular tissue models beyond standard glassforming paradigms.
• To explore the influence of cell shape on these dynamics and their relation to glassy behavior.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of geometric cell models focusing on their physical properties.
• Characterization of dynamics, viscosity, and dynamical heterogeneities across varying temperatures.
• Systematic tuning of the characteristic cell shape index.

Main Results:

• Dynamics in the sub-Arrhenius regime show unusual viscosity scaling and suppressed heterogeneities, deviating from standard glass behavior.
• The Stokes-Einstein-Sutherland relation does not break down in this regime.
• Cell shape index critically controls the transition between anomalous and standard glassforming dynamics.

Conclusions:

• Geometric cell models display universal dynamical features distinct from conventional glassformers.
• The observed dynamics, while not exhibiting typical glassy hallmarks, are also unlike simple liquids at low temperatures.
• Cell shape is a key parameter for tuning the dynamical behavior of these tissue models.