Extended Data Fig. 5: Analysis of active vs. passive filament straightening and topological defects.
From: Chiral and nematic phases of flexible active filaments
a, Snapshots of simulations of passive (v0 = 0 nm s–1) and self-propelled filaments in 3 different densities (Φ = 0.3, 0.5, 0.7; L = 42 d). Active filaments show visibly stronger density fluctuations than passive filaments. b, Phase of highly flexible filaments with increased density of topological defects. Filaments are colored according to the orientation of the bond vectors between beads. Only bonds of the filaments (without the full diameter of beads) are presented for clarity. c, Lifetimes of nematic defects with varying flexure number (n = 41, 47, 61, 33, 44 and 64 for ℱ = 5, 10, 25, 40, 100 and 200). d, Lifetime of integer defects with varying flexure number (n = 22, 15, 3, 1, 4 and 4 for ℱ = 5, 10, 25, 40, 100 and 200). The boxes indicate the 25–75th percentiles, whiskers show the maximum/minimum values within the standard deviation and the midline indicates the median. e, Mean squared displacements (MSD) of nematic defects detected in the simulations (all flexure numbers combined), showing sub-diffusive scaling. The MSD of +1/2 defects is slightly higher, but the overall MSD in real time and space units is relatively small (0.4 µm2 at 100 s). f, Snapshot of high-density simulation (Φ = 0.95, ℱ = 10) showing the nematic director field (right) analysed from orientations of each polymer bead (left). Yellow circle represents identified +1 spiral defect, whereas blue triangles correspond to +1/2 defects.
