Non-equilibrium phase transitions in tubulation by molecular motors

Abstract

The extraction of membrane tubes by molecular motors is known to play an important role for the transport properties of eukaryotic cells. By studying a generic class of models for the tube extraction, we discover a rich phase diagram. In particular we show that the density of motors along the tube can exhibit shocks, inverse shocks and plateaux, depending on parameters which could in principle be probed experimentally. In addition the phase diagram exhibits interesting reentrant behavior.