Correlation lengths in hydrodynamic models of active nematics

Hemingway, E.J.; Mishra, P; Marchetti, M.C.; Fielding, S.M.

doi:10.1039/c6sm00812g

Correlation lengths in hydrodynamic models of active nematics

Hemingway, E.J.; Mishra, P; Marchetti, M.C.; Fielding, S.M.

Authors

E.J. Hemingway

P Mishra

M.C. Marchetti

Professor Suzanne Fielding suzanne.fielding@durham.ac.uk
Professor

Abstract

We examine the scaling with activity of the emergent length scales that control the nonequilibrium dynamics of an active nematic liquid crystal, using two popular hydrodynamic models that have been employed in previous studies. In both models we find that the chaotic spatio-temporal dynamics in the regime of fully developed active turbulence is controlled by a single active scale determined by the balance of active and elastic stresses, regardless of whether the active stress is extensile or contractile in nature. The observed scaling of the kinetic energy and enstrophy with activity is consistent with our single-length scale argument and simple dimensional analysis. Our results provide a unified understanding of apparent discrepancies in the previous literature and demonstrate that the essential physics is robust to the choice of model.

Citation

Hemingway, E., Mishra, P., Marchetti, M., & Fielding, S. (2016). Correlation lengths in hydrodynamic models of active nematics. Soft Matter, 12(38), 7943-7952. https://doi.org/10.1039/c6sm00812g

Journal Article Type	Article
Acceptance Date	Aug 22, 2016
Online Publication Date	Sep 2, 2016
Publication Date	Oct 14, 2016
Deposit Date	Sep 28, 2016
Publicly Available Date	Aug 22, 2017
Journal	Soft Matter
Print ISSN	1744-683X
Electronic ISSN	1744-6848
Publisher	Royal Society of Chemistry
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	12
Issue	38
Pages	7943-7952
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1039/c6sm00812g
Related Public URLs	https://arxiv.org/abs/1604.01203