Instabilities of complex fluids with partially structured and partially random interactions

TY - JOUR

T1 - Instabilities of complex fluids with partially structured and partially random interactions

AU - Carugno, Giorgio

AU - Neri, Izaak

AU - Vivo, Pierpaolo

N1 - Funding Information: GC would like to thank Francesco Coghi and Gianmichele Di Matteo for insightful discussions. IN thanks Omar Adame-Arana, Pablo Sartori and Francesco Turci for fruitful discussions. GC is supported by the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Cross-Disciplinary Approaches to Non-Equilibrium Systems (CANES, EP/L015854/1). Publisher Copyright: © 2022 The Author(s). Published by IOP Publishing Ltd.

PY - 2022/9/1

Y1 - 2022/9/1

N2 - We develop a theory for thermodynamic instabilities of complex fluids composed of many interacting chemical species organised in families. This model includes partially structured and partially random interactions and can be solved exactly using tools from random matrix theory. The model exhibits three kinds of fluid instabilities: one in which the species form a condensate with a local density that depends on their family (family condensation); one in which species demix in two phases depending on their family (family demixing); and one in which species demix in a random manner irrespective of their family (random demixing). We determine the critical spinodal density of the three types of instabilities and find that the critical spinodal density is finite for both family condensation and family demixing, while for random demixing the critical spinodal density grows as the square root of the number of species. We use the developed framework to describe phase-separation instability of the cytoplasm induced by a change in pH.

AB - We develop a theory for thermodynamic instabilities of complex fluids composed of many interacting chemical species organised in families. This model includes partially structured and partially random interactions and can be solved exactly using tools from random matrix theory. The model exhibits three kinds of fluid instabilities: one in which the species form a condensate with a local density that depends on their family (family condensation); one in which species demix in two phases depending on their family (family demixing); and one in which species demix in a random manner irrespective of their family (random demixing). We determine the critical spinodal density of the three types of instabilities and find that the critical spinodal density is finite for both family condensation and family demixing, while for random demixing the critical spinodal density grows as the square root of the number of species. We use the developed framework to describe phase-separation instability of the cytoplasm induced by a change in pH.

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85134720687&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1088/1478-3975/ac55f9

DO - 10.1088/1478-3975/ac55f9

M3 - Article

SN - 1478-3967

VL - 19

JO - Physical Biology

JF - Physical Biology

IS - 5

M1 - 056001

ER -