Nonequilibrium pattern formation in chiral Langmuir monolayers with transmembrane flows

TL;DR

This paper presents a theoretical study of nonequilibrium pattern formation in chiral Langmuir monolayers with transmembrane flows, revealing how flow-induced collective precession and splay interactions lead to spiral and target patterns.

Contribution

It introduces a model explaining the formation of complex patterns in chiral monolayers under flow, connecting experimental observations with theoretical mechanisms.

Findings

Flow induces collective precession of chiral molecules

Splay interactions cause spatial redistribution of molecules

Formation of spiral waves and target patterns observed experimentally

Abstract

Nonequilibrium Langmuir monolayers including a fraction of chiral molecules and subject to transmembrane flow are considered. The flow induces coherent collective precession of chiral molecules. Our theoretical study shows that splay interactions in this system lead to spatial redistribution of chiral molecules and formation of spiral waves and target patterns observed in experiments.