English

Fluid mixing by curved trajectories of microswimmers

Soft Condensed Matter 2015-06-16 v1 Chaotic Dynamics Biological Physics Fluid Dynamics

Abstract

We consider the tracer diffusion DrrD_{rr} that arises from the run-and-tumble motion of low Reynolds number swimmers, such as bacteria. Assuming a dilute suspension, where the bacteria move in uncorrelated runs of length λ\lambda, we obtain an exact expression for DrrD_{rr} for dipolar swimmers in three dimensions, hence explaining the surprising result that this is independent of λ\lambda. We compare DrrD_{rr} to the contribution to tracer diffusion from entrainment.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1307.6025,
  title  = {Fluid mixing by curved trajectories of microswimmers},
  author = {Dmitri O. Pushkin and Julia M. Yeomans},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1307.6025},
  year   = {2015}
}

Comments

5 pages, 2 figures