Condensed Matter Theory

Abstract:

We use numerical simulations and linear stability analysis to study an active nematic layer where the director is allowed to point out of the plane. Our results highlight the difference between extensile and contractile systems. Contractile stress suppresses the flows perpendicular to the layer and favors in-plane orientations of the director. By contrast extensile stress promotes instabilities that can turn the director out of the plane, leaving behind a population of distinct, in-plane regions that continually elongate and divide. This supports extensile forces as a mechanism for the initial stages of layer formation in living systems, and we show that a planar drop with extensile (contractile) activity grows into three dimensions (remains in two dimensions). The results also explain the propensity of disclination lines in three dimensional active nematics to be of twist type in extensile or wedge type in contractile materials.

Abstract:

We consider the XY spin chain with arbitrary time-dependent magnetic field and anisotropy. We argue that a certain subclass of Gaussian states, called Coherent Ensemble (CE) following [1], provides a natural and unified framework for out-of-equilibrium physics in this model. We show that all correlation functions in the CE can be computed using form factor expansion and expressed in terms of Fredholm determinants. In particular, we present exact out-of-equilibrium expressions in the thermodynamic limit for the previously unknown order parameter 1-point function, dynamical 2-point function and equal-time 3-point function.