Inherently unstable networks collapse to a critical point.
Nonequilibrium systems that are driven or drive themselves towards a critical point have been studied for almost three decades. Here we present a minimalist example of such a system, motivated by experiments on collapsing active elastic networks. Our model of an unstable elastic network exhibits a collapse towards a critical point from any macroscopically connected initial configuration. Taking into account steric interactions within the network, the model qualitatively and quantitatively reproduces results of the experiments on collapsing active gels.
Department of Physics and Astronomy, VU University, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.|Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics, 14195 Berlin, Germany.
M
M
Sheinman
Department of Physics and Astronomy, VU University, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.|Drittes Physikalisches Institut, Georg-August-Universitat Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany.
A
A
Sharma
FOM Institute AMOLF, Science Park 104, 1098 XG Amsterdam, The Netherlands.|Department of Mechanical Engineering, Hatsopoulos Microfluids Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA.
J
J
Alvarado
FOM Institute AMOLF, Science Park 104, 1098 XG Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
G H
GH
Koenderink
Department of Physics and Astronomy, VU University, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
F C
FC
MacKintosh