Related papers: Do small swimmers mix the ocean?
Catalytic colloidal swimmers that propel due to self-generated fluid flows exhibit strong affinity for surfaces. We here report experimental measurements of significantly different velocities of such microswimmers in the vicinity of…
A conformation space kinetic model is constructed to drive the deformation cycle of a three-sphere swimmer to achieve propulsion at low Reynolds number. We analyze the effect of an external load on the performance of this kinetic swimmer,…
Hydrodynamic synchronization provides a general mechanism for the spontaneous emergence of coherent beating states in independently driven mesoscopic oscillators. A complete physical picture of those phenomena is of definite importance to…
When a floating body is internally or externally vibrated, its self-generated wavefield can lead to steady propulsion along the interface. In this article, we review several related and recently discovered systems that leverage this…
Locomotion is typically studied either in continuous media where bodies and legs experience forces generated by the flowing medium, or on solid substrates dominated by friction. In the former, centralized coordination is believed to…
Fish schooling is often modeled with self-propelled particles subject to phenomenological behavioral rules. Although fish are known to sense and exploit flow features, these models usually neglect hydrodynamics. Here, we propose a novel…
The theories of aero- and hydrodynamics predict animal movement and device design in air and water through the computation of lift, drag, and thrust forces. Although models of terrestrial legged locomotion have focused on interactions with…
Recent surveys of marine plastic debris density have revealed high levels in the center of the subtropical gyres. Earlier studies have argued that the formation of great garbage patches is due to Ekman convergence in such regions. In this…
In this paper we present a hydrodynamic approach to describe the motion of migrating bacteria as a special class of self-propelled systems. Analytical and numerical calculations has been performed to study the behavior of our model in the…
Context. Circumstellar disks are known to contain a significant mass in dust ranging from micron to centimeter size. Meteorites are evidence that individual grains of those sizes were collected and assembled into planetesimals in the young…
Surface interactions provide a class of mechanisms which can be employed for propulsion of micro- and nanometer sized particles. We investigate the related efficiency of externally and self-propelled swimmers. A general scaling relation is…
The capacity to sense gradients efficiently and acquire information about the ambient environment confers many advantages like facilitating movement toward nutrient sources or away from toxic chemicals. The amplified dispersal evinced by…
Self-propelled particles with hydrodynamic interactions (microswimmers) have previously been shown to produce long-range ordering phenomena. Many theoretical explanations for these collective phenomena are connected to instabilities in the…
In this paper we investigate mixing and transport in correspondence of a meandering jet. The large-scale flow field is a kinematically assigned streamfunction. Two basic mixing mechanisms are considered, first separately and then combined…
Interaction of motile microrganisms with a nearby solid substrate is a well studied phenomenon. However, the effects of hydrodynamic slippage on the substrate have received a little attention. In the present study, within the framework of…
The dynamic and thermal regimes of climate are regulated by an exchange of energy and momentum between the atmosphere and the ocean. The role exerted by surface waves on this interchange is particularly enigmatic. Waves induce turbulence in…
Many biological microswimmers can modulate their swimming gait to achieve directional control of motility, especially when performing steering towards specific directional cues. This can be achieved without the need for obvious…
In this fluid dynamics video, we demonstrate the microscale mixing enhancement of passive tracer particles in suspensions of swimming microalgae, Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. These biflagellated, single-celled eukaryotes (10 micron diameter)…
Methods of dynamical system's theory are used for numerical study of transport and mixing of passive particles (water masses, temperature, salinity, pollutants, etc.) in simple kinematic ocean models composed with the main Eulerian coherent…
We show that activity and broken fore-aft shape symmetry enable microswimmers to cross streamlines in nonuniform shear, a key yet overlooked factor in active cross-stream migration. Using a model of flagellated microswimmers in microchannel…