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Pattern formation driven by nematic ordering of assembling biopolymers

Falko Ziebert·Walter Zimmermann
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Abstract

The biopolymers actin and microtubules are often in an ongoing assembling/disassembling state far from thermal equilibrium. Above a critical density this leads to spatially periodic patterns, as shown by a scaling argument and in terms of a phenomenological continuum model, that meets also Onsager's statistical theory of the nematic--to--isotropic transition in the absence of reaction kinetics. This pattern forming process depends much on nonlinear effects and a common linear stability analysis of the isotropic distribution of the filaments is often misleading. The wave number of the pattern decreases with the assembling/disassembling rate and there is an uncommon discontinuous transition between the nematic and the periodic state.

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Falko Ziebert, Walter Zimmermann. 2003-04-28. Pattern formation driven by nematic ordering of assembling biopolymers. https://doi.org/10.1103/physreve.70.022902

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