Chirality inversion and odd transport in a suspension of living rotors
Abstract
Chiral symmetry breaking is a defining feature of life, visible at all scales from molecules to organisms. Yet how microscopic chirality propagates to shape the macroscopic properties of living matter remains poorly understood. Here, using a new experimental system of spinning microalgae, we show that a living chiral fluid behaves fundamentally differently from an externally driven one. As their density increases, cells self-assemble hydrodynamically into small rotating clusters which merge into a percolating chiral fluid. Strikingly, microscopic and macroscopic vorticity have opposite signs: individual cells all spin clockwise, yet clusters orbit counterclockwise. Combining experiments, theory and simulations, we show that both chirality inversion and percolation are direct consequences of the cells' internally driven nature. We then show how percolation reshapes transport, with even and odd diffusivities responding differently to the emerging network topology.
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BibTeX
@misc{eisenmann2026chirality,
title = {{Chirality inversion and odd transport in a suspension of living rotors}},
author = {Isabelle Eisenmann and Pedro Cosme and Hannah van Sterkenburg and Hugo Franca and Titouan Seguy and Maria Tatulea-Codrean and Maziyar Jalaal},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2610.41016},
eprint = {2610.41016},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.41016},
note = {CC BY-NC-ND 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Chirality inversion and odd transport in a suspension of living rotors
AU - Isabelle Eisenmann
AU - Pedro Cosme
AU - Hannah van Sterkenburg
AU - Hugo Franca
AU - Titouan Seguy
AU - Maria Tatulea-Codrean
AU - Maziyar Jalaal
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/29
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2610.41016
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.41016
AB - Chiral symmetry breaking is a defining feature of life, visible at all scales from molecules to organisms. Yet how microscopic chirality propagates to shape the macroscopic properties of living matter remains poorly understood. Here, using a new experimental system of spinning microalgae, we show that a living chiral fluid behaves fundamentally differently from an externally driven one. As their density increases, cells self-assemble hydrodynamically into small rotating clusters which merge into a percolating chiral fluid. Strikingly, microscopic and macroscopic vorticity have opposite signs: individual cells all spin clockwise, yet clusters orbit counterclockwise. Combining experiments, theory and simulations, we show that both chirality inversion and percolation are direct consequences of the cells' internally driven nature. We then show how percolation reshapes transport, with even and odd diffusivities responding differently to the emerging network topology.
ER -