Fig. 5.

Order parameter histograms of common intracellular compartmentalizations. We use the cellular order parameters $m_0$ and $m_1$ to quantify core–shell and Janus behavior in simulations of the microscopic model. The order parameters are normalized such that $m_0=1$ and $m_1=1$ for the perfectly ordered configurations. (A) The interior composition and the boundary composition are kept even. As the size of the cell grows from 32 (salmon) to 64 (violet), 128 (teal), 256 (green), and 512 (brown) interior spinners, the cell configuration transitions from inverted Janus to bubble–crescent. For very small cells, thermal fluctuations smear out the histogram significantly. (B) Transient behavior in cells of 32 (top row), 128 (middle row), and 512 (lower row) interior spinners. Medium-sized cells exhibit periodic migrations where spinners of one type travel along the segment of the same type in the boundary. For large cells, this migration becomes self-reinforcing due to the boundary rotation it induces, causing a spontaneous symmetry-breaking.