Nonequilibrium Structure and Relaxation in Active Microemulsions
Phys. Rev. Lett. 135, 038401 – Published 15 July, 2025
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/jfm6-8h9s
Abstract
Microphase separation is common in active biological systems as exemplified by the separation of RNA- and DNA-rich phases in the cell nucleus driven by the transcriptional activity of polymerase enzymes acting similarly to amphiphiles in a microemulsion. Here we propose an analytically tractable model of an active microemulsion to investigate how the activity affects its structure and relaxation dynamics. Continuum theory derived from a lattice model exhibits two distinct regimes of the relaxation dynamics and is linked to the broken detailed balance due to intermittent activity of the amphiphiles.
