Title:	Reentrant melting of scarred odd crystals by self-shear
Authors:	Tiwari, Uttam Arora, Pragya Sood, A K Ramaswamy, Sriram Mandal, Rituparno Ganapathy, Rajesh
Keywords:	Condensed-matter physics Soft materials Statistical physics, thermodynamics and nonlinear dynamics
Issue Date:	16-Jan-2026
Publisher:	Nature Communications
Citation:	Nature Communications, 2026, Vol. 17, AR No. 1802
Abstract:	Spatial confinement can induce geometrical frustration in condensed phases, giving rise to topological defects that confer materials with new and exotic properties. Here, we experimentally uncover the effect of confinement-induced defect strings termed ‘grain boundary scars’ on the behavior of dense two-dimensional assemblies of granular spinners, a canonical odd elastic solid. The spatial arrangement of these scars fundamentally reshapes the flows triggered by chiral activity. Specifically, they cause the topologically protected edge flows - a ubiquitous feature of confined spinner assemblies - to decouple from the bulk. Strikingly, increasing the net chiral activity of the system by tuning the ratio of counterclockwise to clockwise spinners caused spontaneous self-shearing. The resulting odd radial stresses led to a chiral activity-mediated reentrant melting transition at a fixed areal spinner density. Our findings open new avenues for exploiting geometrical frustration to elicit novel responses from odd elastic solids.
Description:	Open Access.
URI:	http://hdl.handle.net/2289/8690
ISSN:	2041-1723
Alternative Location:	https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2512.17393 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-68510-4
Copyright:	© The Authors
Appears in Collections:	Research Papers (SCM)

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