Enhanced rotational motion of spherical squirmer in polymer solutions
Soft Condensed Matter
2020-03-09 v1 Biological Physics
Abstract
The rotational diffusive motion of a self-propelled, attractive spherical colloid immersed in a solution of self-avoiding polymers is studied by mesoscale hydrodynamic simulations. A drastic enhancement of the rotational diffusion by more than an order of magnitude in the presence of activity is obtained. The amplification is a consequence of two effects, a decrease of the amount of adsorbed polymers by active motion and an asymmetric encounter with polymers on the squirmer surface, which yields an additional torque and random noise for the rotational motion. Our simulations suggest a way to control the rotational dynamics of squirmer-type microswimmers by the degree of polymer adsorption and system heterogeneity.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2003.03319,
title = {Enhanced rotational motion of spherical squirmer in polymer solutions},
author = {Kai Qi and Elmar Westphal and Gerhard Gompper and Roland G. Winkler},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2003.03319},
year = {2020}
}
Comments
5 figures