Softness, anomalous dynamics, and fractal-like energy landscape in model cell tissues

• Main Authors: Li, Yan-Wei, Wei, Leon Loh Yeong, Paoluzzi, Matteo, Ciamarra, Massimo Pica
• Other Authors: School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: 2021
• Subjects: Science::Physics; Epithelial Cells; Glasses
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/151107
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Epithelial cell tissues have a slow relaxation dynamics resembling that of supercooled liquids. Yet, they also have distinguishing features. These include an extended short-time subdiffusive transient, as observed in some experiments and recent studies of model systems, and a sub-Arrhenius dependence of the relaxation time on temperature, as reported in numerical studies. Here we demonstrate that the anomalous glassy dynamics of epithelial tissues originates from the emergence of a fractal-like energy landscape, particles becoming virtually free to diffuse in specific phase space directions up to a small distance. Furthermore, we clarify that the stiffness of the cells tunes this anomalous behavior, tissues of stiff cells having conventional glassy relaxation dynamics.