Publications

The list of publications on Google Scholar may be more up-to-date. Reprints are provided for personal use only.

Research articles

Submitted

• Q. Yu, M. P. Leighton, C. W. Lynn, Coarse-graining dynamics to maximize irreversibility, arXiv 2506.01909 (2025). [arXiv link] [PDF].
• T. GrandPre$^{=}$, Q. Yu$^{=}$, A. G. T. Pyo, A. Košmrlj, N. S. Wingreen, Membrane wetting by biomolecular condensates is facilitated by mobile tethers, bioRXiv (2025) [bioRxiv link] [PDF].

2025

• A. G. T. Pyo, Q. Yu, J. Merkenschlager, and N. S. Wingreen, Evolutionary benefits of fitness-dependent mutation rates, Physical Review Letters, 135, 048402 (2025) [Journal link] [PDF].
• S. A. Quinodoz$^{=}$, L. Jiang$^{=}$, A. Abu-Alfa, T. Comi, H. Zhao, Q. Yu, …, A. Košmrlj, D. L. Lafontaine, S. Klinge, C. P. Brangwynne, Mapping and engineering RNA-driven architecture of the multiphase nucleolus, Nature (2025) [Journal link] [PDF] [News]
• X. Ouyang, S. Sutradhar, O. Trottier, S. Shree, Q. Yu, Y. Tu, J. Howard, Neurons exploit stochastic growth to rapidly and economically build dense dendritic arbors, Nature Communications, 16, 5903 (2025). [Journal link] [PDF].
• Q. Yu and A. Košmrlj, Pattern formation of lipid domains in bilayer membranes, Soft Matter, 21, 4288 (2025). [Journal link] [PDF].
• A. Papagiannakis, Q. Yu, S. K. Govers, W-H Lin, N. S. Wingreen, C. Jacobs-Wagner, Nonequilibrium polysome dynamics promote chromosome segregation and its coupling to cell growth in Escherichia coli, eLife 14, RP104276 (2025). [Journal link] [PDF].
• C. W. Lynn, Q. Yu, R. Pang, W. Bialek, and S. E. Palmer, Exactly solvable statistical physics models for large neuronal populations, Physical Review Research, 7, L022039 (2025).[Journal link] [PDF].
• C. W. Lynn, Q. Yu, R. Pang, S. E. Palmer, and W. Bialek, Exact minimax entropy models of large-scale neuronal activity, Physical Review E, 111, 054411 (2025). [Journal link] [PDF].

2024

• D. Hathcock$^{=}$, Q. Yu$^{=}$, and Y. Tu, Time-reversal symmetry breaking in the chemosensory array: asymmetric switching and dissipation-enhanced sensing, Nature Communications, 15, 8892 (2024). [Journal link] [PDF].
• Q. Yu$^{=}$ and P. E. Harunari$^{=}$, Dissipation at limited resolutions: Power law and detection of hidden dissipative scales, Journal of Statistical Mechanics: Theory and Experiment, 2024, 103201 (2024). [Journal link] [PDF].

2023

• D. Hathcock$^{=}$, Q. Yu$^{=}$, B. Mello, D. N. Amin, G. L. Hazelbauer, and Y. Tu, A nonequilibrium allosteric model for receptor-kinase complexes: The role of energy dissipation in chemotaxis signaling, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 120, e2303115120 (2023). [Journal link] [PDF] [News]

2022

• Q. Yu and Y. Tu, Energy cost for flocking of active spins: The Cusped Dissipation Maximum at the Flocking Transition, Physical Review Letters, 129, 278001 (2022). [Journal link] [PDF].
• Q. Yu and Y. Tu, State-space renormalization group theory of nonequilibrium reaction networks: Exact solutions for hypercubic lattices in arbitrary dimensions, Physical Review E, 105, 044140 (2022). [Journal link] [PDF].
• Q. Yu, A. B. Kolomeisky, and O. A. Igoshin, The energy cost and optimal design of networks for biological discrimination, Journal of the Royal Society Interface, 19, 20210883 (2022). [Journal link] [PDF].

$\leq$ 2021

• Q. Yu, D. Zhang, and Y. Tu, Inverse Power Law Scaling of Energy Dissipation Rate in Nonequilibrium Reaction Networks, Physical Review Letters, 126, 080601 (2021). [Journal link] [PDF].
• Q. Yu, J. D. Mallory, A. B. Kolomeisky, J. Ling, and O. A. Igoshin, Trade-Offs between Speed, Accuracy, and Dissipation in tRNA$^{Ile}$ Aminoacylation, The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters, 11, 4001-4007 (2020). [Journal link] [PDF].

Science Communications (articles for the public)

Princeton Insights is a journal run by Princeton graduate and postdoctoral researchers. It highlights some of the most exciting and groundbreaking work at Princeton through short, accessible reviews. I have written a few articles for the Insights:

1. Topology helps slime bacteria form fruiting bodies. (Dec 2021) This article reviews research led by Drs. Katherine Copenhagen and Ricard Alert. The original paper was published in Nature Physics.

2. Understanding the arrow of time across scales and complexity (Nov 2022) This article reviews research led by Dr. Christopher Lynn. The original paper was published in Physical Review Letters.