Related papers: Mixing by microorganisms in stratified fluids
Several micro-organisms, such as bacteria, algae, or spermatozoa, use flagella or cilia to swim in a fluid, while many other micro-organisms instead use ample shape deformation, described as amoeboid, to propel themselves by either crawling…
The experiments of Leptos et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 198103 (2009)] show that the displacements of small particles affected by swimming microorganisms achieve a non-Gaussian distribution, which nevertheless scales diffusively -- the…
The mixing efficiency of a flow advecting a passive scalar sustained by steady sources and sinks is naturally defined in terms of the suppression of bulk scalar variance in the presence of stirring, relative to the variance in the absence…
Stratified spin-up experiments in enclosed cylinders have reported the presence of small pockets of well-mixed fluids but quantitative measurements of the mixedness of the fluid has been lacking. Previous numerical simulations have not…
Micro-organisms expend energy moving through complex media. While propulsion speed is an important property of locomotion, efficiency is another factor that may determine the swimming gait adopted by a micro-organism in order to locomote in…
Active matter exhibits various forms of non-equilibrium states in the absence of external forcing, including macroscopic steady-state currents. Such states are often too complex to be modelled from first principles and our understanding of…
We propose a combined analytical-numerical strategy to predict the dynamics and trajectory of a microswimmer next to a curved spherical obstacle. The microswimmer is actuated by a slip velocity on its surface and a uniformly valid solution…
We study a linear inviscid model of a passively flexible swimmer with distributed flexibility, calculating its propulsive performance and optimal distributions of flexibility. The frequencies of actuation and mean stiffness ratios we…
Microswimmers typically operate in complex environments. In biological systems, often diverse species are simultaneously present and interact with each other. Here, we derive a (time-dependent) particle-scale statistical description, namely…
Shear-induced vertical mixing in a stratified flow is a key ingredient of thermohaline circulation. We experimentally determine the vertical flux of momentum and density of a forced gravity current using high-resolution velocity and density…
The vertical transport of solid material in a stratified medium is fundamental to a number of environmental applications, with implications for the carbon cycle and nutrient transport in marine ecosystems. In this work, we study the…
Microswimmers (planktonic microorganisms or artificial active particles) immersed in a fluid interact with the ambient flow, altering their trajectories. In surface gravity waves, a common goal for microswimmers is vertical migration (e.g.,…
Swimming of microorganisms is studied from a viewpoint of extended objects (strings and membranes) swimming in the incompressible f luid of low Reynolds number. The flagellated motion is analyzed in two dimensional fluid, by using the…
The collective motion of microorganisms and microrobots can be used for particle delivery, especially when guided by external magnetic fields, phototaxis, or chemotaxis. This cargo transport is enhanced significantly by hydrodynamic…
Within a parton cascade approach we investigate the scaling of the differential elliptic flow $v_2(p_T)$ with eccentricity $\epsilon_x$ and system size and its sensitivity to finite shear viscosity. We present calculations for shear…
The locomotion of microorganisms and spermatozoa in complex viscoelastic fluids is of critical importance in many biological processes such as fertilization, infection, and biofilm formation. Depending on their propulsion mechanisms,…
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…
We investigate the influence of elastic turbulence on mixing of a scalar concentration field within a viscoelastic fluid in a two-dimensional Taylor-Couette geometry using numerical solutions of the Oldroyd-B model. The flow state is…
Locomotion and transport of microorganisms in fluids is an essential aspect of life. Search for food, orientation toward light, spreading of off-spring, and the formation of colonies are only possible due to locomotion. Swimming at the…
A variety of swimming microorganisms, called ciliates, exploit the bending of a large number of small and densely-packed organelles, termed cilia, in order to propel themselves in a viscous fluid. We consider a spherical envelope model for…