Active polymers and filaments play a fundamental role in life, serving as essential building blocks across various length scales. Fir instance, they dictate the mechanical and structural properties of cells and can assemble into complex structures with surprising properties. Despite their significance, understanding the collective emergent properties of such structures (such as their mechanical response or rheology) remains elusive.
In this project, you will investigate the behavior of an aggregate of aquatic worms -The Blob- that will serve as an experimental platform to investigate the physics of active polymers. both the collective macroscopic properties of The Blob, as well as the behavior of the individual worms inside the Blob, to ultimately be able to explain the emergent dynamics and responses of the Blob on external stimuli. This project involves various cutting edge visualization techniques to be able to image inside the Blob (ultrasound, fast microscopy), rheology, Python-based data processing, and simulations.