Soft Matter and Complex Systems Seminar

Transport networks, such as vasculature or river networks, provide crucial functionalities in organisms and the environment. They often emerge as a result of unstable growth processes, in which growing branches of the network compete for the available flux. This leads to effective repulsion between the branches and screening of the shorter ones. We show that a striking transition in growth dynamics takes place as the leading branch reaches the end of the system. The shorter branches revive and grow towards the leading one forming loops. These effects are observed both in the living and inanimate systems.