Abstract
Peristalsis by actively generated waves of muscle contraction is one of the most fundamental ways of producing motion in living systems. We show that peristalsis can be modeled by a train of rectangular-shaped solitary waves of localized activity propagating through otherwise passive matter. Our analysis is based on the Fermi-Pasta-Ulam (FPU) type discrete model accounting for active stresses and we reveal the existence in this problem of a critical regime which we argue to be physiologically advantageous.
- Received 5 December 2020
- Accepted 23 March 2021
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.103.042411
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