Excitability and oscillations of active droplets
- In the field of biomolecular condensates and synthetic systems, it is an open question whether liquid droplets can undergo self-sustained oscillations of formation and dissolution. To unravel the minimal physicochemical prerequisite for such droplet oscillations, we present a simple model composed of only two independent chemical components with their diffusive and chemical fluxes governed by nonequilibrium thermodynamics. There is turnover of fuel that maintains a chemical reaction away from equilibrium, leading to active droplets. We find that a single active droplet undergoes a saddle-node bifurcation in the droplet volume upon increasing the fueling strength. Strikingly, the active droplet becomes excitable upon adding a further chemical reaction. For sufficient fueling, the system undergoes self-sustained oscillations.
| Author: | Ivar S. HaugerudORCiD, Hidde D. VuijkORCiDGND, Job Boekhoven, Christoph A. WeberORCiDGND |
|---|---|
| URN: | urn:nbn:de:bvb:384-opus4-1320891 |
| Frontdoor URL | https://opus.bibliothek.uni-augsburg.de/opus4/132089 |
| ISSN: | 0031-9007OPAC |
| ISSN: | 1079-7114OPAC |
| Parent Title (English): | Physical Review Letters |
| Publisher: | American Physical Society (APS) |
| Place of publication: | College Park, MD |
| Type: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Year of first Publication: | 2026 |
| Publishing Institution: | Universität Augsburg |
| Release Date: | 2026/07/21 |
| Volume: | 136 |
| Issue: | 21 |
| First Page: | 218401 |
| DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1103/g9dh-ymx9 |
| Institutes: | Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftlich-Technische Fakultät |
| Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftlich-Technische Fakultät / Institut für Physik | |
| Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftlich-Technische Fakultät / Institut für Physik / Lehrstuhl für Theoretische Physik II | |
| Dewey Decimal Classification: | 5 Naturwissenschaften und Mathematik / 53 Physik / 530 Physik |
| Licence (German): |  CC-BY 4.0: Creative Commons: Namensnennung |
