Emergent Loewner Dynamics in Slime Mold Growth
Abstract
Growth fronts of slime molds are characterized through a direct geometric analysis based on Loewner evolutions, using experimentally acquired time-resolved images. The associated Loewner driving functions reconstructed from expanding pseudopod boundaries display statistical properties consistent with Gaussian-like behavior. A geometric estimate of the diffusivity parameter~κ is inferred from fractal scaling, while Brownian diagnostics are assessed on the reconstructed driving signal. These findings show that the boundaries of a growing living organism display statistical and geometric properties consistent with emergent Loewner dynamics over experimentally accessible scales. This study establishes a quantitative framework for analyzing biological growth interfaces and suggests new connections between morphogenesis, stochastic geometry, and network reorganization under varying environmental conditions. We provide, to our knowledge, the first explicit reconstruction of a Loewner driving function from a living growth interface, revealing an emergent Brownian-like conformal growth regime at expanding fronts.
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BibTeX
@misc{david2026emergent,
title = {{Emergent Loewner Dynamics in Slime Mold Growth}},
author = {Claire David and Aurèle Boussard and Nizare Riane and Michel Lapidus and Audrey Dussutour},
howpublished = {HAL},
year = {2026},
month = nov,
eprint = {2603.10201},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://hal.science/hal-05851571v1},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Emergent Loewner Dynamics in Slime Mold Growth
AU - Claire David
AU - Aurèle Boussard
AU - Nizare Riane
AU - Michel Lapidus
AU - Audrey Dussutour
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/11/04
PB - HAL
UR - https://hal.science/hal-05851571v1
AB - Growth fronts of slime molds are characterized through a direct geometric analysis based on Loewner evolutions, using experimentally acquired time-resolved images. The associated Loewner driving functions reconstructed from expanding pseudopod boundaries display statistical properties consistent with Gaussian-like behavior. A geometric estimate of the diffusivity parameter~κ is inferred from fractal scaling, while Brownian diagnostics are assessed on the reconstructed driving signal. These findings show that the boundaries of a growing living organism display statistical and geometric properties consistent with emergent Loewner dynamics over experimentally accessible scales. This study establishes a quantitative framework for analyzing biological growth interfaces and suggests new connections between morphogenesis, stochastic geometry, and network reorganization under varying environmental conditions. We provide, to our knowledge, the first explicit reconstruction of a Loewner driving function from a living growth interface, revealing an emergent Brownian-like conformal growth regime at expanding fronts.
ER -