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Onset of meso-scale turbulence in active nematics

Author

Listed:
  • Amin Doostmohammadi

    (The Rudolf Peierls Centre for Theoretical Physics, University of Oxford)

  • Tyler N. Shendruk

    (The Rudolf Peierls Centre for Theoretical Physics, University of Oxford
    Center for Studies in Physics and Biology, The Rockefeller University)

  • Kristian Thijssen

    (Eindhoven University of Technology)

  • Julia M. Yeomans

    (The Rudolf Peierls Centre for Theoretical Physics, University of Oxford)

Abstract

Meso-scale turbulence is an innate phenomenon, distinct from inertial turbulence, that spontaneously occurs at low Reynolds number in fluidized biological systems. This spatiotemporal disordered flow radically changes nutrient and molecular transport in living fluids and can strongly affect the collective behaviour in prominent biological processes, including biofilm formation, morphogenesis and cancer invasion. Despite its crucial role in such physiological processes, understanding meso-scale turbulence and any relation to classical inertial turbulence remains obscure. Here we show how the motion of active matter along a micro-channel transitions to meso-scale turbulence through the evolution of locally disordered patches (active puffs) from an ordered vortex-lattice flow state. We demonstrate that the stationary critical exponents of this transition to meso-scale turbulence in a channel coincide with the directed percolation universality class. This finding bridges our understanding of the onset of low-Reynolds-number meso-scale turbulence and traditional scale-invariant turbulence in confinement.

Suggested Citation

  • Amin Doostmohammadi & Tyler N. Shendruk & Kristian Thijssen & Julia M. Yeomans, 2017. "Onset of meso-scale turbulence in active nematics," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 8(1), pages 1-7, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:8:y:2017:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms15326
    DOI: 10.1038/ncomms15326
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    Cited by:

    1. Teagan E. Bate & Megan E. Varney & Ezra H. Taylor & Joshua H. Dickie & Chih-Che Chueh & Michael M. Norton & Kun-Ta Wu, 2022. "Self-mixing in microtubule-kinesin active fluid from nonuniform to uniform distribution of activity," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-14, December.
    2. Xia, Yuxian & Qiu, Xiang & Lou, Jianping & Qian, Yuehong, 2020. "Lattice Boltzmann Simulation for two-dimensional bacterial turbulence," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 555(C).
    3. Stephen Williams & Raphaël Jeanneret & Idan Tuval & Marco Polin, 2022. "Confinement-induced accumulation and de-mixing of microscopic active-passive mixtures," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-8, December.

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