Cilia and flagella exhibit regular bending waves that perform mechanical work on the surrounding fluid, to propel cellular swimmers and pump fluids inside organisms. Here, we quantify a force-velocity relationship of the beating flagellum, by exposing flagellated \emph{Chlamydomonas} cells to controlled microfluidic flows. A simple theory of flagellar limit-cycle oscillations, calibrated by measurements in the absence of flow, reproduces this relationship quantitatively. We derive a link between the chemo-mechanical efficiency of the flagellar beat and its ability to synchronize to oscillatory flows.
@article{arxiv.1606.00863,
title = {The load-response of the flagellar beat},
author = {Gary S. Klindt and Christian Ruloff and Christian Wanger and Benjamin M. Friedrich},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1606.00863},
year = {2016}
}
Comments
5 pages, 3 figures; accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. Lett