Odd phenomena in chiral active matter: from biology to rheology
By: Pedro A. Cosme
From: Van der Waals-Zeeman Institute/Institute of Physics, Universiteit van Amsterdam, and Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa
At: Building C2, room 2.4.16
[2026-05-21]
Chiral symmetry breaking is a defining feature of life, visible at all scales from molecules to organisms. Further, its intrinsically out-of-equilibrium nature has attracted great interest in the active matter community. In this talk, we explore several time-reversal/parity-breaking collective phenomena that emerge in chiral active matter, from both theoretical and experimental approaches. We first present a general hydrodynamic framework for the rheology of such fluids, focusing on how to tailor it from the microscopy, and what global phenomena one can attain. We then introduce a novel experimental system of biological microrotors interacting hydrodynamically, and show how their active (i.e. internally driven) nature enables a striking inversion of microscopic and macroscopic chirality - giving rise to anomalous odd transport coefficients.