圆柱体中的手性堆积对约束变形超敏感
Chiral Packings in Cylinders are Ultrasensitive to Confinement Deformation
AI总结：
研究椭圆柱体中的硬球密堆积，发现弱截面变形即可触发全新相，消除或复杂化手性结构，揭示了圆柱各向异性的显著效应。
摘要：
圆筒中的球体堆积引起了大量研究兴趣，其中手性螺旋结构的发现最具标志性。然而，近期关于斑马鱼的实验结果与已知的圆筒堆积结构不符。为了解释生物管道的固有缺陷，我们将椭圆柱体作为圆筒的典型变形，并通过模拟、理论和实验研究了其中硬球的最密堆积。从圆筒中的手性结构出发，我们证明即使微弱的横截面变形也能触发全新的相，包括消除全局手性或显著复杂化手性结构的相。这揭示了圆柱各向异性的显著效应。各向异性约束下的新螺旋相保持手性并发展出层次周期结构，这些结构难以通过模拟获得，但由我们新发展的椭圆柱体中螺旋相理论所预测。该理论还预测了无手性的双振荡链相，与模拟完美匹配。我们的工作为理解各向异性柱体中的堆积提供了新见解，将有助于研究人员设计新材料和理解许多生命系统。
英文摘要：
Sphere packings in circular cylinders have attracted substantial research interest, among which the discovery of chiral helical structures is the most iconic. However, recent experimental results on zebrafish do not match the known packing structures in circular cylinders. To account for the inherent imperfections of biological tubes, we take elliptic cylinders as the canonical deformation of circular cylinders and investigate the densest packings of hard spheres in them using simulation, theory, and experiments. Starting from the chiral structures in circular cylinders, we demonstrate that even a weak cross-sectional deformation can trigger entirely new phases, including ones that either eliminate global chirality or significantly complicate the chiral structures. This reveals the significant effect of cylindrical anisotropy. The new helical phases under anisotropic confinement remain chiral and develop hierarchical periodic structures, which are difficult to obtain by simulations but are predicted by our newly developed theory for helical phases in elliptic cylinders. The theory also predicts double oscillated-chain phases without chirality, which perfectly match the simulations. Our work offers fresh insights into understanding packings in anisotropic cylinders, which will help researchers to design new materials and to understand many living systems.
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