How to efficiently extract a filament from a topological tangle

Tangled balls of soft filaments are encountered ubiquitously, ranging from Cyanobacteria tangles to tangled computer cables inside a storage drawer. How does the entanglement between individual filaments affect their untangling behavior? We explore this question by considering the extraction of a single soft fiber from a tangled ball of similar fibers hanging in gravity. Our experiments reveal that vertically vibrating a single fiber from the hanging tangle at an optimal frequency can lead to its expedited extraction. We test this observation for various degrees of “tangledness” by changing the parameters of an in-house stochastic tangling setup. We try to further understand this behavior by taking a deterministically formed entangled system using a square mesh of soft fibers instead of the tangled ball. These experiments uncover the role played by the internal tangle topology and material properties of the fibers in the frequency response of fiber extraction. Our minimal experimental model along with numerical simulations can provide useful insights into understanding the relationship between entanglement and dynamical responses of a system.