Sanchita Chakraborty
University of Notre Dame
3:30 PM
154 Hurley Hall
Nematic Materials on Curved Surfaces with Immersed Inclusions
In eukaryotic cell nuclei, the nuclear envelope is a double-membrane composite reinforced by lamins (fibers) and populated with nuclear pore complexes (NPCs) that gate nucleo-cytoplasmic transport. Controlling surface nematic textures provides a way to tune nuclear rigidity and structural integrity and to organize NPC number, spacing, and mobility on inclusion-rich membranes. We study Landau-de Gennes Q-tensor nematics on a sphere perforated by N circular inclusions that enforce tangential anchoring, computed with SurfaceFun on a high-order cubed-sphere. Each inclusion contributes one unit of boundary winding, which fixes the interior charge at 2−N. Taken together, these findings suggest that tuning the number of inclusions N, and thereby the defect budget (2−N), may provide a practical route to shape morphology and, in turn, bolster the structural integrity of closed shells.
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