2014/10/21 by Shradha Mishra, Sanjay Puri, Sriram Ramaswamy +1
Computer Science · Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #Active matter #Advanced Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics #Condensed matter physics #Conservation law #Field (mathematics) #Isotropy #Liquid crystal #Mathematics #Micro and Nano Robotics #Nonlinear Dynamics and Pattern Formation #Optics #Phase (matter) #Physics #Pure mathematics #Quantum mechanics #Statistical physics #cond-mat.soft #cond-mat.stat-mech
paper · pdf · doi:10.1098/rsta.2013.0364
published as Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A 372, 20130364 (2014) · 22 pages, 13 figures
arxiv created 2014/10/21 · openalex publication_date 2014/10/21 · arxiv updated 2014/10/22 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Active nematics are conceptually the simplest orientationally ordered phase of self-driven particles, but have proved to be a perennial source of surprises. We show here through numerical solution of coarse-grained equations for the order parameter and density that the growth of the active nematic phase from the isotropic phase is necessarily accompanied by a clumping of the density. The growth kinetics of the density domains is shown to be faster than the [Formula: see text] law expected for variables governed by a conservation law. Other results presented include the suppression of density fluctuations in the stationary ordered nematic by the imposition of an orienting field. We close by posing some open questions.