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Zhu W, Knoll P, Steinbock O. Exploring the Synthesis of Self-Organization and Active Motion. J Phys Chem Lett 2024; 15:5476-5487. [PMID: 38748082 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpclett.4c01031] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/24/2024]
Abstract
Proteins, genetic material, and membranes are fundamental to all known organisms, yet these components alone do not constitute life. Life emerges from the dynamic processes of self-organization, assembly, and active motion, suggesting the existence of similar artificial systems. Against this backdrop, our Perspective explores a variety of chemical phenomena illustrating how nonequilibrium self-organization and micromotors contribute to life-like behavior and functionalities. After explaining key terms, we discuss specific examples including enzymatic motion, diffusiophoretic and bubble-driven self-propulsion, pattern-forming reaction-diffusion systems, self-assembling inorganic aggregates, and hierarchically emergent phenomena. We also provide a roadmap for combining self-organization and active motion and discuss possible outcomes through biological analogs. We suggest that this research direction, deeply rooted in physical chemistry, offers opportunities for further development with broad impacts on related sciences and technologies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Wen Zhu
- Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida 32306-4390, United States
| | - Pamela Knoll
- UK Centre for Astrobiology, School of Physics and Astronomy, Institute for Condensed Matter and Complex Systems, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH9 3FD, U.K
| | - Oliver Steinbock
- Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida 32306-4390, United States
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2
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Wittmann R, Monderkamp PA, Löwen H. Statistics of carrier-cargo complexes. Phys Rev E 2023; 107:064602. [PMID: 37464670 DOI: 10.1103/physreve.107.064602] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/23/2022] [Accepted: 05/17/2023] [Indexed: 07/20/2023]
Abstract
We explore the statistics of assembling soft-matter building blocks to investigate the uptake and encapsulation of cargo particles by carriers engulfing their load. While the such carrier-cargo complexes are important for many applications out of equilibrium, such as drug delivery and synthetic cell encapsulation, we uncover here the basic statistical physics in minimal hard-core-like models for particle uptake. Introducing an exactly solvable equilibrium model in one dimension, we demonstrate that the formation of carrier-cargo complexes can be largely tuned by both the cargo concentration and the carriers' interior size. These findings are intuitively explained by interpreting the internal free space (partition function) of the cargo inside a carrier as its engulfment strength, which can be mapped to an external control parameter (chemical potential) of an additional effective particle species. Assuming a hard carrier membrane, such a mapping can be exactly applied to account for multiple cargo uptake involving various carrier or cargo species and even attractive uptake mechanisms, while soft interactions require certain approximations. We further argue that the Boltzmann occupation law identified within our approach is broken when particle uptake is governed by nonequilibrium forces. Speculating on alternative occupation laws using effective parameters, we put forward a Bose-Einstein-like phase transition associated with polydisperse carrier properties.
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Affiliation(s)
- René Wittmann
- Institut für Theoretische Physik II: Weiche Materie, Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf, 40225 Düsseldorf, Germany
| | - Paul A Monderkamp
- Institut für Theoretische Physik II: Weiche Materie, Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf, 40225 Düsseldorf, Germany
| | - Hartmut Löwen
- Institut für Theoretische Physik II: Weiche Materie, Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf, 40225 Düsseldorf, Germany
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3
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Chepizhko O, Franosch T. Resonant Diffusion of a Gravitactic Circle Swimmer. PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS 2022; 129:228003. [PMID: 36493425 DOI: 10.1103/physrevlett.129.228003] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/23/2022] [Revised: 08/16/2022] [Accepted: 10/07/2022] [Indexed: 06/17/2023]
Abstract
We investigate the dynamics of a single chiral active particle subject to an external torque due to the presence of a gravitational field. Our computer simulations reveal an arbitrarily strong increase of the long-time diffusivity of the gravitactic agent when the external torque approaches the intrinsic angular drift. We provide analytic expressions for the mean-square displacement in terms of eigenfunctions and eigenvalues of the noisy-driven-pendulum problem. The pronounced maximum in the diffusivity is then rationalized by the vanishing of the lowest eigenvalues of the Fokker-Planck equation for the angular motion as the rotational diffusion decreases and the underlying classical bifurcation is approached. A simple harmonic-oscillator picture for the barrier-dominated motion provides a quantitative description for the onset of the resonance while its range of validity is determined by the crossover to a critical-fluctuation-dominated regime.
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Affiliation(s)
- Oleksandr Chepizhko
- Institut für Theoretische Physik, Universität Innsbruck, Technikerstraße 21A, A-6020 Innsbruck, Austria
| | - Thomas Franosch
- Institut für Theoretische Physik, Universität Innsbruck, Technikerstraße 21A, A-6020 Innsbruck, Austria
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4
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Li L, Li W, Chen K, Zheng N, Yang M. Erratum: "Migration of an active colloidal cell in inhomogeneous environments" [J. Chem. Phys. 156, 134903 (2022)]. J Chem Phys 2022; 157:119901. [PMID: 36137805 DOI: 10.1063/5.0120755] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/15/2022] Open
Affiliation(s)
- Longfei Li
- School of Physics, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing 100081, China
| | - Wenjian Li
- School of Physics, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing 100081, China
| | - Ke Chen
- Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics and Laboratory of Soft Matter Physics, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China
| | - Ning Zheng
- School of Physics, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing 100081, China
| | - Mingcheng Yang
- Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics and Laboratory of Soft Matter Physics, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China
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5
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Cao XZ, Merlitz H, Wu CX, Forest MG. Screening confinement of entanglements: Role of a self-propelling end inducing ballistic chain reptation. Phys Rev E 2022; 106:L022501. [PMID: 36110008 DOI: 10.1103/physreve.106.l022501] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/29/2021] [Accepted: 07/18/2022] [Indexed: 06/15/2023]
Abstract
Synthetic and natural nanomaterials with self-propelling mechanisms continue to be explored to boost chain mobility beyond normal reptation in the crowded environments of entangled chains. Here we employ scaling theory and numerical simulations to demonstrate that activating one chain end of a singular or isolated chain boosts entanglement-constrained chain reptation from the one-dimensional diffusive mobility as described by the de Gennes-Edwards-Doi model to ballistic motion along the entanglement tube contour. The active chain is effectively screened from the constraint of entanglements on length scales exceeding the tube size.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xue-Zheng Cao
- Department of Physics, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005, People's Republic of China
| | - Holger Merlitz
- Leibniz-Institut für Polymerforschung Dresden, 01069 Dresden, Germany
| | - Chen-Xu Wu
- Department of Physics, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005, People's Republic of China
| | - M Gregory Forest
- Departments of Mathematics, Applied Physical Sciences, Biomedical Engineering, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599-3250, USA
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6
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Shinde R, Sommer JU, Löwen H, Sharma A. Strongly enhanced dynamics of a charged Rouse dimer by an external magnetic field. PNAS NEXUS 2022; 1:pgac119. [PMID: 36741452 PMCID: PMC9896929 DOI: 10.1093/pnasnexus/pgac119] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/25/2021] [Accepted: 07/20/2022] [Indexed: 02/07/2023]
Abstract
While the dynamics of dimers and polymer chains in a viscous solvent is well understood within the celebrated Rouse model, the effect of an external magnetic field on the dynamics of a charged chain is much less understood. Here, we generalize the Rouse model for a charged dimer to include the effect of an external magnetic field. Our analytically solvable model allows a fundamental insight into the magneto-generated dynamics of the dimer in the overdamped limit as induced by the Lorentz force. Surprisingly, for a dimer of oppositely charged particles, we find an enormous enhancement of the dynamics of the dimer center, which exhibits even a transient superballistic behavior. This is highly unusual in an overdamped system for there is neither inertia nor any internal or external driving. We attribute this to a significant translation and rotation coupling due to the Lorentz force. We also find that magnetic field reduces the mobility of a dimer along its orientation and its effective rotational diffusion coefficient. In principle, our predictions can be tested by experiments with colloidal particles and complex plasmas.
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Affiliation(s)
- Rushikesh Shinde
- Institut Theorie der Polymere, Leibniz-Institut für Polymerforschung Dresden, Kaitzer Straße 4, 01069 Saxony, Deutschland,Fakultät Informatik, Technische Universität Dresden, 01187 Saxony, Deutschland
| | - Jens Uwe Sommer
- Institut Theorie der Polymere, Leibniz-Institut für Polymerforschung Dresden, Kaitzer Straße 4, 01069 Saxony, Deutschland,Institut für Theoretische Physik, Technische Universität Dresden, 01069 Saxony, Deutschland
| | - Hartmut Löwen
- Institut für Theoretische Physik II : Weiche Materie, Heinrich–Heine-Universität Düsseldorf, 40225 Nordrhein–Westfalen, Deutschland
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7
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Vuijk HD, Klempahn S, Merlitz H, Sommer JU, Sharma A. Active colloidal molecules in activity gradients. Phys Rev E 2022; 106:014617. [PMID: 35974656 DOI: 10.1103/physreve.106.014617] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/16/2022] [Accepted: 07/18/2022] [Indexed: 06/15/2023]
Abstract
We consider a rigid assembly of two active Brownian particles, forming an active colloidal dimer, in a gradient of activity. We show analytically that depending on the relative orientation of the two particles the active dimer accumulates in regions of either high or low activity, corresponding to, respectively, chemotaxis and antichemotaxis. Certain active dimers show both chemotactic and antichemotactic behavior, depending on the strength of the activity. Our coarse-grained Fokker-Planck approach yields an effective potential, which we use to construct a nonequilibrium phase diagram that classifies the dimers according to their tactic behavior. Moreover, we show that for certain dimers a higher persistence of the motion is achieved similar to the effect of a steering wheel in macroscopic devices. This work could be useful for designing autonomous active colloidal structures which adjust their motion depending on the local activity gradients.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hidde D Vuijk
- Leibniz-Institut für Polymerforschung Dresden, Institut Theory der Polymere, 01069 Dresden, Germany
| | - Sophie Klempahn
- Leibniz-Institut für Polymerforschung Dresden, Institut Theory der Polymere, 01069 Dresden, Germany
| | - Holger Merlitz
- Leibniz-Institut für Polymerforschung Dresden, Institut Theory der Polymere, 01069 Dresden, Germany
- School of Physical Science and Technology, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005, People's Republic of China
| | - Jens-Uwe Sommer
- Leibniz-Institut für Polymerforschung Dresden, Institut Theory der Polymere, 01069 Dresden, Germany
- Technische Universität Dresden, Institut für Theoretische Physik, 01069 Dresden, Germany
| | - Abhinav Sharma
- Leibniz-Institut für Polymerforschung Dresden, Institut Theory der Polymere, 01069 Dresden, Germany
- Technische Universität Dresden, Institut für Theoretische Physik, 01069 Dresden, Germany
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8
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Patterson GA. Bistability in orbital trajectories of a chiral self-propelled particle interacting with an external field. Phys Rev E 2022; 106:014615. [PMID: 35974547 DOI: 10.1103/physreve.106.014615] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/04/2022] [Accepted: 07/12/2022] [Indexed: 06/15/2023]
Abstract
In this paper, the dynamics of a self-propelled stochastic particle under the influence of an axisymmetric light field is experimentally studied. The particle under consideration has the main characteristic of carrying a light sensor in an eccentric location. For the chosen experimental conditions, the emerging trajectories are orbital, and, more interestingly, they suggest the existence of bistability. A mathematical model incorporating the key experimental components is introduced. By means of numerical simulations and theoretical analysis, it is found that, in addition to the orbiting behavior, the sensor location could produce trapped or diffusive behaviors. Furthermore, the study reveals that stochastic perturbation and the eccentric location of the sensor are responsible for inducing bistability in the orbital trajectories, supporting experimental observations.
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Affiliation(s)
- G A Patterson
- Instituto Tecnológico de Buenos Aires, CONICET, Lavardén 315, 1437 Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires, Argentina
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Li L, Li W, Chen K, Zheng N, Yang M. Migration of an active colloidal cell in inhomogeneous environments. J Chem Phys 2022; 156:134903. [PMID: 35395881 DOI: 10.1063/5.0084490] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/14/2022] Open
Abstract
Living cells on a substrate with mechanical inhomogeneities often migrate along or against the mechanical gradient, i.e., mechanotaxis, which inspires us to ask how biomimetic cells without biochemical signaling processes respond to environmental inhomogeneity. Here, we perform computer simulations to study the migration of a 2D active colloidal cell (ACC), which consists of active particles enclosed by a passive vesicle, in a heterogeneous environment composed of two adjoining uniform regions with different attributes (influencing the persistent length of the active particle). We find that the ACC can migrate unidirectionally across the interface separating the heterogeneous region and behave tactically. Interestingly, the tactic motion of the ACC is qualitatively different from that of the constituent active particles themselves. In addition, the ACC may also experience a directed drift along the interface of the heterogeneous environment. The tactic behavior of the ACC can be explained by analyzing the pressure distribution on the cell membrane exerted by the enclosed active particles. The findings provide insights into understanding the taxis of biological cells and designing biomimetic cells with environment-sensitive capabilities.
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Affiliation(s)
- Longfei Li
- School of Physics, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing 100081, China
| | - Wenjian Li
- School of Physics, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing 100081, China
| | - Ke Chen
- Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics and Laboratory of Soft Matter Physics, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China
| | - Ning Zheng
- School of Physics, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing 100081, China
| | - Mingcheng Yang
- Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics and Laboratory of Soft Matter Physics, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China
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10
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Caprini L, Marini Bettolo Marconi U, Wittmann R, Löwen H. Dynamics of active particles with space-dependent swim velocity. SOFT MATTER 2022; 18:1412-1422. [PMID: 35080576 DOI: 10.1039/d1sm01648b] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/14/2023]
Abstract
We study the dynamical properties of an active particle subject to a swimming speed explicitly depending on the particle position. The oscillating spatial profile of the swim velocity considered in this paper takes inspiration from experimental studies based on Janus particles whose speed can be modulated by an external source of light. We suggest and apply an appropriate model of an active Ornstein Uhlenbeck particle (AOUP) to the present case. This allows us to predict the stationary properties, by finding the exact solution of the steady-state probability distribution of particle position and velocity. From this, we obtain the spatial density profile and show that its form is consistent with the one found in the framework of other popular models. The reduced velocity distribution highlights the emergence of non-Gaussianity in our generalized AOUP model which becomes more evident as the spatial dependence of the velocity profile becomes more pronounced. Then, we focus on the time-dependent properties of the system. Velocity autocorrelation functions are studied in the steady-state combining numerical and analytical methods derived under suitable approximations. We observe a non-monotonic decay in the temporal shape of the velocity autocorrelation function which depends on the ratio between the persistence length and the spatial period of the swim velocity. In addition, we numerically and analytically study the mean square displacement and the long-time diffusion coefficient. The ballistic regime, observed in the small-time region, is deeply affected by the properties of the swim velocity landscape which induces also a crossover to a sub-ballistic but superdiffusive regime for intermediate times. Finally, the long-time diffusion coefficient decreases as the amplitude of the swim velocity oscillations increases because the diffusion is mainly determined by those regions where the particles are slow.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lorenzo Caprini
- Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf, Institut für Theoretische Physik II - Soft Matter, D-40225 Düsseldorf, Germany
| | | | - René Wittmann
- Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf, Institut für Theoretische Physik II - Soft Matter, D-40225 Düsseldorf, Germany
| | - Hartmut Löwen
- Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf, Institut für Theoretische Physik II - Soft Matter, D-40225 Düsseldorf, Germany
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11
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Bernardi D, Lindner B. Run with the Brownian Hare, Hunt with the Deterministic Hounds. PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS 2022; 128:040601. [PMID: 35148130 DOI: 10.1103/physrevlett.128.040601] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/13/2021] [Accepted: 12/24/2021] [Indexed: 06/14/2023]
Abstract
We present analytic results for mean capture time and energy expended by a pack of deterministic hounds actively chasing a randomly diffusing prey. Depending on the number of chasers, the mean capture time as a function of the prey's diffusion coefficient can be monotonically increasing, decreasing, or attain a minimum at a finite value. Optimal speed and number of chasing hounds exist and depend on each chaser's baseline power consumption. The model can serve as an analytically tractable basis for further studies with bearing on the growing field of smart microswimmers and autonomous robots.
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Affiliation(s)
- Davide Bernardi
- Center for Translational Neurophysiology of Speech and Communication, Fondazione Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, via Fossato di Mortara 19, 44121 Ferrara, Italy
| | - Benjamin Lindner
- Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience Berlin, Philippstraße 13, Haus 2, 10115 Berlin, Germany and Physics Department of Humboldt University Berlin, Newtonstraße 15, 12489 Berlin, Germany
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