BPCPPDYSOE21 – scientific programme

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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 28: Active Matter 4 - organized by Carsten Beta (Potsdam), Andreas Menzel (Magdeburg) and Holger Stark (Berlin) (joint session DY/BP)

BP 28.1: Talk

Wednesday, March 24, 2021, 11:00–11:20, DYb

Wrinkling instability in 3D active nematics — Tobias Struebing, Amir Khosravanizadeh, Andrej Vilfan, Eberhard Bodenschatz, Ramin Golestanian, and •Isabella Guido — Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization, Goettigen, Germany

Networks of biopolymers and motor proteins are useful model systems for the understanding of emergent behaviour of active matter. An interesting class of such systems comprises active nematics, fluids constituted by self-organising elongated particles that in-vitro assemble in dynamical structures at length scales larger than those of their components by several orders of magnitude. In the last years the active nematic behaviour of biopolymer-motor networks confined on a 2D substrate was reported. Here we present an experimental and theoretical study on 3D active nematics made of microtubules, kinesin-1 motor proteins and a depleting agent. The network is subjected to the force exerted by the motors that crosslinked the filaments and let them slide against each other. In this way the system evolves toward a flattened and contracted 2D sheet that undergoes a wrinkling instability in the third dimension and subsequently transitions into an active turbulent state. We observe that the wrinkle wavelength is independent of the ATP concentration. A theoretical model describes its relation with the appearance time and a numerical simulation confirms the key role of kinesin motors in the contraction and extension of the network. Finally, we show how motor concentration and environmental cues influence the network properties