Organization and instabilities of entangled active polar filaments

TL;DR

This paper investigates the stability and dynamics of entangled active polar filaments driven by molecular motors, revealing density and orientational instabilities depending on filament density and entanglement effects.

Contribution

It provides a theoretical analysis of how entanglement and motor activity influence filament stability in two and three dimensions.

Findings

Low-density systems exhibit a density instability.

High-density systems show orientational fluctuation instability.

Entanglement effects are crucial at high filament densities.

Abstract

We study the dynamics of an entangled, isotropic solution of polar filaments coupled by molecular motors which generate relative motion of the filaments in two and three dimensions. We investigate the stability of the homogeneous state for constant motor concentration taking into account excluded volume and entanglement. At low filament density the system develops a density instability, while at high filament density entanglement effects drive the instability of orientational fluctuations.