Chirality destroys oriented active solids
Abstract
We construct a hydrodynamic theory of the effect of chiral and active force densities on three-dimensional uniaxial solids. We show that in a fixed background medium active chiral force densities---that arise at lower order in gradients than odd elasticity---generically destabilise the solid state. We further show this active instability also affects isotropic chiral solids in an anisotropic medium, a situation that is relevant for cell clusters moving through the extracellular matrix. Interestingly, the instability is eliminated in a higher-symmetry solid, known as the polar elastomer; indeed, we show that chirality does not affect the leading-order mechanics of such materials. We further demonstrate that momentum-conserving polar active solids have two chiral odd elasticities in contrast to the one discussed for two-dimensional solids. However, we again find that the higher symmetry of polar elastomers eliminates one of these with the remaining one being equivalent to the two-dimensional odd elastic force density. Our results should apply to numerous biological and condensed matter systems.
Related
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BibTeX
@misc{kole2026chirality,
title = {{Chirality destroys oriented active solids}},
author = {S. J. Kole and Gareth P. Alexander and Ananyo Maitra and Sriram Ramaswamy},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2610.25953},
eprint = {2610.25953},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.25953},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Chirality destroys oriented active solids
AU - S. J. Kole
AU - Gareth P. Alexander
AU - Ananyo Maitra
AU - Sriram Ramaswamy
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/19
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2610.25953
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.25953
AB - We construct a hydrodynamic theory of the effect of chiral and active force densities on three-dimensional uniaxial solids. We show that in a fixed background medium active chiral force densities---that arise at lower order in gradients than odd elasticity---generically destabilise the solid state. We further show this active instability also affects isotropic chiral solids in an anisotropic medium, a situation that is relevant for cell clusters moving through the extracellular matrix. Interestingly, the instability is eliminated in a higher-symmetry solid, known as the polar elastomer; indeed, we show that chirality does not affect the leading-order mechanics of such materials. We further demonstrate that momentum-conserving polar active solids have two chiral odd elasticities in contrast to the one discussed for two-dimensional solids. However, we again find that the higher symmetry of polar elastomers eliminates one of these with the remaining one being equivalent to the two-dimensional odd elastic force density. Our results should apply to numerous biological and condensed matter systems.
ER -