Related papers: Auto-chemotactic micro-swimmer suspensions: modeli…
The large scale behaviour of a population of cells that grow and interact through the concentration field of the chemicals they secrete is studied using dynamical renormalization group methods. The combination of the effective long-range…
Several recent experiments investigate the orientational and transport behavior of self-driven bacteria and colloidal particles in nematic liquid crystals. Correspondingly, we study theoretically the dynamics of a minimal model microswimmer…
Continuum hydrodynamic models of active liquid crystals have been used to describe dynamic self-organising systems such as bacterial swarms and cytoskeletal gels. A key prediction of such models is the existence of self-stabilising kink…
Biological functionality of cellular aggregates is largely influenced by the activity and displacements of individual constituent cells. From a theoretical perspective this activity can be characterized by hydrodynamic transport…
Microscopic self-propelled swimmers capable of autonomous navigation through complex environments provide appealing opportunities for localization, pick-up and delivery of micro-and nanoscopic objects. Inspired by motile cells and bacteria,…
Non-equilibrium processes which convert chemical energy into mechanical motion enable the motility of organisms. Bundles of inextensible filaments driven by energy transduction of molecular motors form essential components of micron-scale…
Geometric confinement plays an important role in the dynamics of natural and synthetic microswimmers from bacterial cells to self-propelled particles in high-throughput microfluidic devices. However, little is known about the effects of…
Cooperative motion in biological microswimmers is crucial for their survival as it facilitates adhesion to surfaces, formation of hierarchical colonies, efficient motion, and enhanced access to nutrients. Synthetic microswimmers currently…
Active fluids can develop spontaneous flow instabilities and complex patterns. However, spatio-temporal control of active particles has remained challenging, despite its relevance in biological and applied contexts. Here, we harnessed…
Bacteria can spontaneously develop collective motions by aligning their motions in dense systems. Here, we show that bacteria can also respond collectively to an alternating electrical field and form dynamic clusters oscillating at the same…
Both natural and artificial small-scale swimmers may often self-propel in environments subject to complex geometrical constraints. While most past theoretical work on low-Reynolds number locomotion addressed idealised geometrical…
Many biological microswimmers are capable of chemotaxis, i.e., they can sense an ambient chemical gradient and adjust their mechanism of motility to move towards or away from the source of the gradient. Synthetic active colloids endowed…
Micron-sized self-propelled (active) particles can be considered as model systems for characterizing more complex biological organisms like swimming bacteria or motile cells. We produce asymmetric microswimmers by soft lithography and study…
The cytoplasm and biomembranes in biological cells contain large numbers of proteins that cyclically change their shapes. They are molecular machines that can function as molecular motors or carry out many other tasks in the cell. We…
The properties of biological microswimmers are to a large extent determined by fluid-mediated interactions, which govern their propulsion, perception of their surrounding, and the steering of their motion for feeding or in pursuit.…
Deformable boundaries are omnipresent in the habitats of swimming microorganisms, leading to intricate hydroelastic couplings. Employing a perturbation theory, valid for small deformations, we study the swimming dynamics of pushers and…
From the formation of animal flocks to the emergence of coordinate motion in bacterial swarms, at all scales populations of motile organisms display coherent collective motion. This consistent behavior strongly contrasts with the difference…
We investigate how shear influences the dynamics of active particles in dilute to concentrated suspensions. Using apolar active suspensions of squirmers as model systems, we show how their long-time diffusive dynamics can surprisingly slow…
Phase separation drives the formation of biomolecular condensates in cells, which comprise many components and sometimes possess multiple phases. The equilibrium physics of phase separation is well understood, but many components in…
We developed a mechanical model of spermatozoal swimming in bulk suspensions. We traced the spatiotemporal elastohydrodynamic interactions and found that spermatozoa engaged in self-organisation: flagellar undulatory motion generated a…