Description:

We will discuss recent results with active nematics confined to either toroidal or flat space. We will first describe how curvature affects defect arrangement on tori. We will show that despite the intrinsic activity and out-of-equilibrium character of the system, there are still remnants of the expected curvature-induced defect unbinding predicted for nematics in their ground state. Activity, however, augments the behavior leading to unexpected defect distributions. We will then focus on defect orientation and show that on flat space, there is short-range orientational correlations without long-range orientational order.

Professor Alberto Fernandez-Nieves, School of Physics, Georgia Tech (USA); Department of Condensed Matter Physics, University of Barcelona; ICREA - Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats, Barcelona

Host: Michelle Driscoll

Keywords: Physics, Astronomy, Complex Systems