Related papers: Enhanced active swimming in viscoelastic fluids
Active diffusiophoresis - swimming through interaction with a self-generated, neutral, solute gradient - is a paradigm for autonomous motion at the micrometer scale. We study this propulsion mechanism within a linear response theory.…
Motility is a fundamental feature of living matter, encompassing single cells and collective behavior. Such living systems are characterized by non-conservativity of energy and a large diversity of spatio-temporal patterns. Thus,…
This paper is concerned with the diffusion of a fluid through a viscoelastic solid undergoing large deformations. Using ideas from the classical theory of mixtures and a thermodynamic framework based on the notion of maximization of the…
In this work we consider the following question: given a mechanical microswimming mechanism, does increased deformability of the swimmer body hinder or promote the motility of the swimmer? To answer this we study a microswimmer model…
We consider the motion of rigid bodies in a potential fluid subject to certain nonholonomic constraints and show that it is described by Euler--Poincar\'e--Suslov equations. In the 2-dimensional case, when the constraint is realized by a…
Small-scale locomotion plays an important role in biology. Different modelling approaches have been proposed in the past. The simplest model is an infinite inextensible two-dimensional waving sheet, {originally introduced by Taylor}, which…
We use particle simulations to reveal two distinct propulsion mechanisms for a scallop-like swimmer to locomote itself in granular media by reciprocally flapping its wings. Based on the discrete element method, we examine the kinematics and…
Propulsion at microscopic scales is often achieved through propagating traveling waves along hair-like organelles called flagella. Taylor's two-dimensional swimming sheet model is frequently used to provide insight into problems of…
The motility of microorganisms is influenced greatly by their hydrodynamic interactions with the fluidic environment they inhabit. We show by direct experimental observation of the bi-flagellated alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii that fluid…
Microorganisms naturally move in microstructured fluids. Using the simulation method of multi-particle collision dynamics, we study an undulatory Taylor line swimming in a two-dimensional microchannel and in a cubic lattice of obstacles,…
In isotropic fluids like water, micrometer-scale swimmers have evolved swim strokes to translate despite their tiny size. As described by Purcell in his Scallop Theorem, reciprocal motions, like those performed by a scallop, cannot drive…
In this work, we study active particles with prescribed surface velocities in non-Newtonian fluids. We employ the reciprocal theorem to obtain the velocity of an active spherical particle with an arbitrary axisymmetric slip-velocity in an…
The self-propulsion of +1/2 topological defects is a hallmark of active nematic fluids, where the defects are advected by the flow field they themselves generate. In this paper we propose a minimal model for defect self-propulsion in a…
It is numerically investigated whether a deformable object can propel itself in a superfluid. Articulated bodies and multi-component condensates are examined as swimmers. An articulated two-body swimmer cannot obtain locomotion without…
The locomotion and design of microswimmers are topical issues of current fundamental and applied research. In addition to numerous living and artificial active microswimmers, a passive microswimmer was identified only recently: a soft,…
The present study investigates novelties brought about into the classic Biot's theory of propagation of elastic waves in a fluid-saturated porous solid by inclusion of non-Newtonian effects that are important, for example, for hydrocarbons.…
Many swimming microorganisms, such as bacteria and sperm, use flexible flagella to move through viscoelastic media in their natural environments. In this paper we address the effects a viscoelastic fluid has on the motion and beating…
This chapter on the rheology of active fluids is an attempt to correlate theoretical and experimental work. A considerable amount of theoretical work and most of the experimental data focus on the rheology of active fluids in a Newtonian…
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…
We consider a suspension of active rigid particles (swimmers) in a steady Stokes flow, where particles are distributed according to a stationary ergodic random process, and we study its homogenization in the macroscopic limit. A key point…