Active materials take advantage of their internal sources of energy to self-organize in an automated manner. This feature provides a novel opportunity to design micron-scale machines with minimal required control. However, self-organization goes hand in hand with predetermined dynamics that are hardly susceptible to environmental perturbations. Therefore, utilizing this feature of active systems requires harnessing and directing the macroscopic dynamics to achieve specific functions; which in turn necessitates understanding the underlying mechanisms of active forces. Previous experiment has demonstrated the dynamics of active networks composed of microtubules and light-activatable motor proteins can be modeled as a self-affine contraction network. However, the underlying physics of this phenomenon remains unclear. The goal of the research is to develop a theoretical framework describing the contractile behavior of the active matter system and simulate this process.
