2024/09/30 by Samantha R. Lish, Lish, Samantha R., Lukas Hupe +5 · 2 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics #Biological Physics (physics.bio-ph) #FOS: Physical sciences #Micro and Nano Robotics #Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft) #Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech)
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2409.20481
openalex publication_date 2024/09/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We introduce and theoretically investigate a minimal particle-based model for a new class of active matter where particles exhibit directional, volume-conserving division in confinement while interacting sterically, mimicking cells in early embryogenesis. We find that complex motion, synchronized within division cycles, displays strong collective effects and becomes self-similar in the long-time limit. Introducing the method of normalized retraced trajectories, we show that the transgenerational motion caused by cell division can be mapped to a time-inhomogenous random walk with an exponentially decreasing length scale. Analytical predictions for this stochastic process allow us to extract effective parameters, indicating unusual effects of crowding and absence of jamming. Robustness of our findings against desynchronized divisions, cell size dispersity, and variations in confinement hints at universal behavior. Our results establish an understanding of complex dynamics exhibited by isovolumentric division over long timescales, paving the way for new bioengineering strategies and perspectives on living matter.