Spontaneous Circulation of Active Microtubules Confined by Optical Traps

TL;DR

This paper proposes an experiment to observe spontaneous ordering and symmetry breaking in kinesin-driven microtubules confined by optical traps, supported by feasibility calculations and first-principles simulations.

Contribution

It introduces a novel experimental setup and simulation analysis to demonstrate spontaneous microtubule organization and symmetry breaking in confined active matter.

Findings

Microtubules spontaneously align and circle the trap under certain conditions.

Three distinct phases with different symmetry properties were identified.

Velocity and angular momentum spectra characterize phase differences.

Abstract

We propose an experiment to demonstrate spontaneous ordering and symmetry breaking of kinesin-driven microtubules confined to an optical trap. Calculations involving the feasibility of such an experiment are first performed which analyze the power needed to confine microtubules and address heating concerns. We then present the results of first-principles simulations of active microtubules confined in such a trap and analyze the types of motion observed by the microtubules as well as the velocity of the surrounding fluid, both near the trap and in the far-field. We find three distinct phases characterized by breaking of distinct symmetries and also analyze the power spectrum of the angular momenta of polymers to further quantify the differences between these phases. Under the correct conditions, microtubules were found to spontaneously align with one another and circle the trap in one direction.