Curvature gaps and localizes odd-elastic oscillations
A covariant theory predicts finite-size gaps, defect-bound modes, and Rayleigh edge waves in active curved solids.
cond-mat.soft
Soft Condensed Matter
Membranes, polymers, liquid crystals, glasses, colloids, granular matter
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Yield-stress bath expands frontal polymerization to low-viscosity polymer inks
Embedded printing decouples shape retention from chemistry, enabling smaller features and complex interlinked thermoset architectures.
· “Embedded Direct Ink Writing of Thermoset and Elastomeric Polymers via Frontal Polymerization”
Monotiles create deployable kirigami across all symmetries
Explicit constructions show single-tile patterns support every wallpaper group plus quasicrystal and polykite variants.
Fluctuating diffusivity unifies non-Gaussian Brownian motion and anomalous diffusion
A single stochastic model produces linear mean-square displacement with non-Gaussian statistics plus trajectory variability and ageing in 60
Active particles gain polarity on spheres via host scars
Non-aligning Brownian particles develop shared direction when their motion creates channeling scars in the passive medium on curved surfaces
· “Curvature-induced host-mediated polarization of active particles”
Exact solution shows no critical point wetting in fluid mixtures
Local XY symmetry governs the absence of critical point wetting up to critical end points in the KWI model and variants.
· “The exact solution of the Koga-Widom-Indekeu model and related models of wetting in fluid mixtures”
Chemical-potential theories embed as slow manifolds in McRD systems
The duality equates Maxwell construction with turnover balance and yields exact traveling-wave speeds for nonreciprocal models.
· “Duality Between Chemical Potential Dynamics and Reaction-Diffusion Systems”
Variational principle predicts delay before viscoelastic cracks start
Path-independent J-integral for time-varying loads gives generalized Griffith criterion and matches measured initiation times.
· “Theory of fracture initiation and propagation in viscoelastic media”
Insertion depth drives concentration-dependent bilayer destabilization
Simulations show chloroform thins membranes while alkanols crowd interfaces and redistribute stress without full melting.
GP surrogates match atomistic benchmark for nanoscale lubrication
Learned from small-box MD, the model reproduces pressure, shear, and density in gold–hexadecane contacts down to 1.4 nm.
Lab quakes follow predicted slip-pulse attractor
Measured pulse size and peak slip rate trace one curve; growth stays slow as theory demands.
· “Lab earthquakes confirm the theory of frictional slip pulses”
Cubes settle without face-parallel contact
Open-source fluid–contact solver runs 103,823 cubes: shape sets microstructure.
Exact formula covers all current fluctuation regimes in an active gas
Scaling depends on how the initial state is averaged, and memory of that state survives at long times
· “Current fluctuations in a gas of active Ornstein-Uhlenbeck particles”
PET enzyme recycling leaves fluffy residue with up to 30x surface
Model predicts a dominant near-particle-sized fluffy cluster plus millions of tiny microparticles, guiding filter-vs-wait choices.
· “Residual semi-crystalline particles released during enzymatic degradation of plastics”
Staggered six-sided pillars push wicking contact angle to ~83°
Texture alone reaches the 83.9° limit on copper and titanium, no hydrophilic coating needed.
· “Reaching the thermodynamic limit of wicking on textured surfaces”
One micron sets how stable glasses transform
Below 1 micron, a front from the surface eats the film; above it, bulk sites spaced a micron apart take over.
· “One micron length scale controls kinetic stability of low energy glasses”
First ultrastable glass from a molecular mixture
50/50 cis/trans-decalin resists liquid transformation 25,000 times longer than its liquid
· “Highly Stable Glasses of cis-Decalin and cis/trans-Decalin Mixtures”
Mechanical test hides 100-fold mobility jump before yield
Pre-yield, probe-measured segmental motion accelerates 100x while stress relaxation barely changes; post-yield they agree.
Energy transfer in APC peaks near 30–40 K
Optical dephasing only speeds up with temperature, so slow environmental motions, not dephasing, steer APC transport.
· “Environmental Control Extends Beyond Quantum Dephasing in Exciton Energy Transfer”
This paper shows that the equations of fluids with odd viscosity
Odd viscous fluids and their oscillator analogues are shown to be PT-symmetric, and the resulting exceptional point and Rabi sidebands give…
· “mathscr{PT}-symmetric hydrodynamics of odd viscous liquids and their oscillator counterparts”
Researchers built a microfluidic chip that sorts microscopic self-propelled particles by…
A curved microfluidic chip progressively separates fast and slow self-propelled particles, demonstrating collective active demixing as a…
All buckling modes of squeezed elastic interfaces
Fixed-area membranes between two rings split into two or four shapes per mode; sideways modes need the least force.
Closed membranes turn isopotential after one ion channel opens
Theory: the compact-cell approximation emerges at late times, not from the start, on a microsecond scale.
· “Voltage dynamics of spherical membranes from single ion channel currents”
One-second Trp-cage trajectory in 14 CPU-hours from a learned model
Short MD runs train a kinetic Monte Carlo surrogate that reproduces the peptide ensemble within statistical noise.
Chiral pitch sets the scale for soliton formation in liquid crystals
A closed-form model reproduces self-focusing and astigmatic nematicons at a fraction of the cost.
Drop motion: only low-order inside forces matter
A reciprocal-theorem formula shows enclosed activity moves a drop only through its lowest multipoles.
· “Translation of a spherical viscous drop driven by localized forcing in Stokes flow”
Charge regulation makes hydrogels swell unevenly
Gels whose charges adapt to local conditions swell more than fixed-charge gels of the same total charge.
· “Non-uniform swelling of polyelectrolyte hydrogels: effects of charge regulation”
Flexible and stiff polyelectrolytes share one quadratic stiffening law
Long-chain simulations and re-analyzed experiments both rule out the linear BJ scaling.
· “Electrostatic Persistence Length Revisited. II. Simulations and Comparison to Experiment”
Polyelectrolyte stiffness scales as salt screening squared
One blob length unifies flexible and stiff chains and settles the flexible-chain scaling debate.
Heating can unmix the simplest symmetric polymer models
No attraction or asymmetry needed—low monomer density makes the effective interaction grow with heat.
Dynamic correlations peak, then shrink, at the glass crossover
In the beta-relaxation window, the correlation length peaks near Tc and falls on further cooling, even as local fluctuations intensify.
· “Non-Monotonic Dynamical Correlations Across The Glass Crossover”
Live algae double jammed emulsions' yield stress
Trapped in shrinking pores, the swimmers push harder and stiffen the droplet network; dead algae do nothing.
· “Active Reinforcement of Jammed Emulsions by Living Microswimmers”
Four pillars, not one algorithm, unlock AI polymer design
A review says databases, encodings, generative models, and platforms must advance together.
One methyl group lifts polar order by up to 120 °C
Adding a 5-methyl to 1,3-dioxane liquid crystals raises ferroelectric onset and can even create polar phases.
Deformation speeds polymer dynamics up to 100-fold
Direct probe measurements show why glassy polymers yield and flow at stresses far below what rest-state mobility would allow.
Vapor-deposited liquid-crystal glass out-orders a week of annealing
Depositing itraconazole at chosen temperatures tunes its smectic-like layer spacing by 16 percent.
· “Highly organized smectic-like packing in vapor-deposited glasses of a liquid crystal”
Polymer glass keeps rejuvenating past five times the yield strain
Optical probes show motion stays fast long after unloading, and yield stress alone misses pre-yield effects.
· “Reversing strain deformations probe mechanisms for enhanced segmental mobility of polymer glasses”
Nematic data fix friction-era string amplitude: A≈10
Three thick-cell quenches give A≈10; the thin-cell run gives A≈3; the sink coefficient stays a curve until line curvature is measured.
· “The friction-era VOS amplitude of a mathbb{Z}₂ string network from nematic disclination data”
One ratio decides if a tissue stops growing or grows forever
Active viscoelastic model unifies determinate, indeterminate and proportionate growth in one framework.
· “Growth phases of an active tissue: determinate, indeterminate, and proportionate”
Molecular glass triples plastic modes' volume coupling
Stiff intramolecular bonds preserve the universal soft-mode spectrum but change how glasses respond to squeezing.
· “Effect of molecular constraints on vibrational and quasilocalized excitations in glasses”
Scaling exponents above 2 need not mean new deformation modes
A topology-aware model shows how density-dependent network shape can raise the exponent.
κ-casein holds the casein micelle's inner scaffold
Cutting κ-casein with chymosin makes the micelle's porous core relax before any clumping begins.
· “Unmasking the internal structure of casein micelles through enzymatic hydrolysis: A SAXS study”
Delay timing alone makes flocking intermittent and fractal
Varying only the mean and amplitude of interaction delays produces abrupt, fractal changes in global flocking order.
· “Intermittent Flocking and Fractal Collective Order Induced by Time-Varying Delays”
Nanosheet spacing stays sharp while stacking order falls to 3 layers
Restoring slope under 1 Pa/nm holds the gap fixed, so structural colour works without extended stacking order.
· “Layered matter that maintains spacing but loses stacking order”
In a viscous fluid, the fastest path is a ramp, not a cycloid
Experiments and theory show the time-minimal track has cycloidal ends, and energy minima take the opposite shape.
· “Hydrodynamic Brachistochrone: Conflicting Paths of Time and Energy Minima within Viscous Media”
A dropped coupling term creates a kink in predicted wet-rock strength
Restoring the pressure–strain term and an associative flow rule gives a continuous fracture-strength surface.
Perpendicular wall lock stalls swimmers
Perpendicular wall locking suppresses diffusion by torque squared; angled or parallel locking makes it grow exponentially.
· “Particle-Wall Alignment Interaction and Active Brownian Diffusion Through Narrow Channels”
Eight minimal cells grow, but environment picks the winner
At low food levels one variant wins; at high levels another does—so fitness is environmental, not fixed.
Integer charges in current fields set active transport paths
Obstacle arrays force particle currents into defect networks whose integer charges survive noise and geometric changes.
· “Topology of Nonequilibrium Currents Controls Active Transport”
Three ingredients reproduce lab viscous fingers at 2000:1
Onset instability ~10x finer than the fingers, plus two-scale permeability noise and oil-wet capillarity.
· “Modelling the onset and evolution of immiscible viscous fingering in porous media”
Crystal masking yields exact packing bounds for spheres in tubes
A simple formula covers every cylinder size, explains oscillations, and sharpens toward close packing as tubes widen.
· “A solid-state theory for dense cylindrical packings of balls”
Sparser brushes make colloidal gels stiffer with fewer contacts
Sparser brushes speed gelation and raise yield stress while cutting coordination, suggesting a lower rigidity threshold.
· “Rheology and Dynamic Arrest in Colloidal Depletion Gels Mediated by Surface Brush Density”
In wide nanochannels layering loses
A mode-by-mode split of shear pressure shows when density variations matter and when they cancel out.
· “Hydrodynamic Mode Coupling: Effects of density variations in nanoscale channel flows”
Convection rolls can switch phase separation off and on
Weak flow keeps clusters; strong flow dissolves them; very fast swimmers re-homogenize the suspension.
· “Effect of Convection Rolls in Motility-Induced Phase Separation of Active Janus Particles”
Substrate's reach into glassy OLED films: 3–8 nm
X-ray scattering and simulations show deposition temperature, not the substrate, sets packing beyond this layer.
Deposit OLED layers near the glass transition to boost efficiency
A deposition-temperature knob controls glass density, molecular orientation, and OLED lifetime.
Particle size, not packing, rules bimodal gel stiffness
In 1:2 bimodal gels, modulus tracks a composition-dependent length scale, not tetrahedral abundance.
· “Size matters more than packing in bimodal colloidal gel compositions”
Buckling rods reproduce collagen and fibrin nonlinearity
A periodic rod-network model recovers strain stiffening, compression softening, and reverse Poynting effects.
One conserved area creates complex vesicle swimming
Just two or three deformation modes produce phase locking, tori, and resonance—readable in swimming statistics.
· “Complex nonlinear dynamics of area-preserving, active vesicles”
Multi-sphere particle shapes now generated inside DEM runs
C++ library replaces offline preprocessing with on-the-fly shape updates for wear, breakage, and deformation.
· “GEMSS: A C++ Library for Multi-Sphere Modeling in DEM Simulations”
Multi-sphere generator provably places spheres on the medial axis
The factor-of-two residual field forces every local maximum onto the shape's skeleton, eliminating explicit medial-axis extraction.
· “Why the Multi-Sphere Shape Generator Works: Medial-Axis Placement of Spheres”
Swimming bacteria steer where salt crystals land
In drying drops, E. coli that swim inward seed isolated central crystals; only cell speed changes the result.
· “Motile Bacteria Modify Salt Precipitation Patterns in Dried Sessile Droplet”
Growth rate times relaxation time decides snaps and wrinkles
At gτ ≈ 1, growing matter snaps, wrinkles hardest, and flows faster than in either limiting regime.
A single timescale ratio predicts scoop vs skim in granular sweeping
Elastic-to-sweep time ratio collapses deflection, ejected mass, and ejection speed onto one transition curve.
OCT watches opaque suspensions settle from the inside
A single run yields continuous velocity and concentration curves that match classic hindered-settling laws.
Heterogeneity, not global change, sets cancer tissue motion
Simulations reproduce the broadened motion signature that distinguishes metastatic cells from normal tissue.
· “Shear effects in active models of normal and cancer cells”
Flexible drug enantiomers still separate under shear flow
Flexibility broadens molecular pitch; mean stays near gas-phase values, so shear separation can reach cm in hours.
One compact equation maps alkali borate glass composition to Tg
The formula uses dissociation energies only, and extrapolates to rubidium and cesium without retraining.
Hard and soft fillers reach the same state by different routes
Both end in the same chain maze, but only the soft-particle path matches real data near saturation.
Water waves expose three regimes in a Fourier quasicrystal
Sparse diffraction peaks set the frequency thresholds between transparency, Bragg deflection, and diffuse scattering.
· “Wave Transport in Fourier Quasicrystals Revealed by Water Waves”
Elliptical contact growth obeys a circle
Contact formation is geometry-insensitive; detachment energy grows with preload and elongation.
· “Contact Formation and Viscoelastic Detachment in Non-Circular Soft Adhesive Contacts”
Melt monomers move on a fractal of dimension 2.6
Measuring the geometry a monomer actually explores points to a percolation-like structure, not reptation's static tube.
· “Testing the Reptation Picture: Topological Constraint from Monomer Dynamics”
Merged elastic wakes redirect flow and bend cantilever arrays inward
Wake merger links local elastic wakes to array-scale bending; shear-thinning blocks it, with implications for cilia.
Protein patterns predicted from equilibrium data alone
Slopes of reactive-equilibrium curves replace unknown reaction rates in stability analysis of cell polarity networks.
· “Classification of Intracellular Protein Patterns from Reactive Equilibria”
One force ratio predicts porosity in drying colloid films
Weak attraction crystallizes; strong attraction makes porous films. Porosity follows the force ratio to the two-thirds power.
Ion-pair non-ideality, not water release, reverses pairing trends
A thermodynamic identity separates water and ion activities, explaining opposite pairing trends under osmotic stress.
One learned functional reproduces 3D liquid structure
Trained only on equilibrium densities, it recovers S(k), the equation of state, coexistence, and solvation forces.
· “Equivariant learning of a transferable three-dimensional classical density functional”
Capillary chains fold to order
3D-printed monomers encode attraction or repulsion in their curvature; long chains host exponentially many competing folded states.
Surface wetting sets the skin of supported emulsion films
Hydrophilic glass grows a water-rich layer; hydrophobic glass flips it to oil-rich patches in particle-stabilised films.
· “Substrate-Directed Wetting Layers in Bicontinuous Particle-Stabilised Emulsions”
Protein cycles make membrane domains blink
Simulations show two-state curvature-inducing proteins drive domains to grow, shrink, and reform at the same spot.
· “Blinking membrane patterns induced by protein binding/unbinding”
