[SY-H6] A minimal micromechanical model for the viscoelasticity in biophysical filamentous networks
The static elastic behaviour of biophysical networks comprising cross-linked semi-flexible filaments is well characterised due to extensive theoretical, computational and experimental studies of in-vitro materials. The dynamic response of these networks, however, still holds several mysteries, including the peculiar variation of the loss modulus with frequency, G’’(ω). For example, entropic effects can explain the increase of G’’ with frequency at high frequencies, but not the minimum in G’’(ω) at intermediate frequencies. The latter feature has been suggested to be governed by the cross-linker dynamics, but the experimental trends are yet to be predicted by theory in a phenomenologically consistent manner. Here, we present a minimal micromechanical description, consisting of two semi-flexible filaments coupled by cross-linkers, whose dynamics is described through a Grand Canonical Monte Carlo scheme.