Connecting anomalous elasticity and sub-Arrhenius structural dynamics in a cell-based model

TL;DR

This study links the atypical sub-Arrhenius structural dynamics in biological tissue models to their elastic properties, revealing that their elastic moduli increase with temperature and influence relaxation times, suggesting a new class of ultra-strong glassformers.

Contribution

It demonstrates a quantitative relationship between elastic moduli and structural relaxation in vertex models, highlighting the role of elasticity in anomalous glassy dynamics.

Findings

Plateau shear and bulk moduli increase monotonically with temperature.

Structural relaxation time is modulated by the plateau shear modulus.

Unusual elastic properties underpin the atypical dynamics of the model.

Abstract

Understanding the structural dynamics of many-particle glassy systems remains a key challenge in statistical physics. Over the last decade, glassy dynamics has also been reported in biological tissues, but is far from being understood. It was recently shown that vertex models of dense biological tissue exhibit very atypical, sub-Arrhenius dynamics, and here we ask whether such atypical structural dynamics of vertex models are related to unusual elastic properties. It is known that at zero temperature these models have an elasticity controlled by their under-constrained or isostatic nature, but little is known about how their elasticity varies with temperature. To address this question we investigate the 2D Voronoi model and measure the temperature dependence of the intermediate-time plateau shear modulus and the bulk modulus. We find that unlike in conventional glassformers, these moduli increase monotonically with temperature until the system fluidizes. We further show that the structural relaxation time can be quantitatively linked to the plateau shear modulus $G_p$, i.e.\ $G_p$ modulates the typical energy barrier scale for cell rearrangements. This suggests that the anomalous, structural dynamics of the 2D Voronoi model originates in its unusual elastic properties. Based on our results, we hypothesize that under-constrained systems might more generally give rise to a new class of "ultra-strong" glassformers.