2023/10/04 by Davide Breoni, Breoni, Davide, Christina Kurzthaler +7 · 1 citation
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · #Biological Physics (physics.bio-ph) #Cellular Mechanics and Interactions #Computational Physics (physics.comp-ph) #FOS: Physical sciences #Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft) #Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech)
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2310.02929
openalex publication_date 2023/10/04 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We study the viscoelastic properties of highly entangled, flexible, self-propelled polymers using Brownian dynamics simulations. Our results show that the active motion of the polymer increases the height of the stress plateau by orders of magnitude due to the emergence of grip forces at entanglement points. Identifying the activity-induced energy of a single polymer and the ratio of polymer length to self-propulsion velocity as relevant energy and time scales, we find the stress autocorrelation functions collapse across Péclet numbers. We predict that the long-time viscosity scales with polymer length squared ∼ L2, in contrast to equilibrium counterparts ∼ L3. These insights offer prospects for designing new materials with activity-responsive mechanical properties.