Supporting information for “Self-assembly of multicomponent structures in and out of equilibrium’

The analytic theory developed in the main text is a dynamical mean-field one, which focuses on the likelihood φ ≡ [(ηi + 1)/2] that a given fiber bond is a bulk one. Here ηi ≡ SiSi+1, is a ‘defect variable’: ηi = 1 describes a bulk (same-color) bond, and ηi = −1 is a defect (unlike-color) one. We expect a mean-field theory of this nature to be most accurate when red and blue blocks are added to the fiber with equal likelihood, because, in this limit, the Ising model representation of fiber energetics can be written in the noninteracting (space-independent) form H = −Ji ηi.