Related papers: Enhanced active swimming in viscoelastic fluids
In this article, we consider a swimmer (i.e. a self-deformable body) immersed in a fluid, the flow of which is governed by the stationary Stokes equations. This model is relevant for studying the locomotion of microorganisms or micro robots…
The rimming flow of a viscoelastic thin film inside a rotating horizontal cylinder is studied theoretically. Attention is given to the onset of non-Newtonian free-surface instability in creeping flow. This non-inertial instability has been…
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…
Microorganisms inhabit viscoelastic environments, where their locomotion can deform polymers and trigger local complex viscoelastic responses. However, a systematic approach to quantify such responses remains lacking. Here, we propose a…
Microorganisms and synthetic microswimmers often encounter complex environments consisting of networks of obstacles embedded into viscous fluids. Such settings include biological media, such as mucus with filamentous networks, as well as…
The locomotion of flexible membrane-like organisms on top of curved surfaces appears in different contexts and scales. Still, such dynamics have not yet been quantitatively modeled and no realization of such motion in manmade systems has…
Understanding swimming in soft yielding media is challenging due to their complex deformation response to the swimmer's motion. We experimentally show that a scallop-inspired swimmer with reciprocally flapping wings generates locomotion in…
Biological microswimmers such as bacteria and sperm cells often encounter complex biological fluid environments. Here we use the well-known squirmer microswimmer model to show the importance of the local fluid microstructure and…
A body immersed in a nematic liquid crystal disturbs the fluid's preferred molecular configuration and increases its stored elastic energy. In an active nematic, the fluid components also generate a stress in the bulk fluid. By introducing…
Many microorganisms swim by performing larger non-reciprocal shape deformations that are initiated locally by molecular motors. However, it remains unclear how decentralized shape control determines the movement of the entire organism.…
The swimming behaviour of microorganisms can be strongly influenced by the rheology of their fluid environment. In this manuscript, we experimentally investigate the effects of shear-thinning viscosity on the swimming behaviour of an…
Cell motility in viscous fluids is ubiquitous and affects many biological processes, including reproduction, infection, and the marine life ecosystem. Here we review the biophysical and mechanical principles of locomotion at the small…
We discuss a micro-swimmer model made of three spheres actuated by an internal active time-periodic force, tied by an elastic potential and submitted to hydrodynamic interactions with thermal noise. The dynamical approach we use, replacing…
We experimentally study the motion of light-activated colloidal microswimmers in a viscoelastic fluid. We find that, in such a non-Newtonian environment, the active colloids undergo an unexpected transition from enhanced angular diffusion…
Fluid-suspended microorganisms have evolved different swimming and feeding strategies in order to cope with an environment dominated by viscous effects. For instance ciliated organisms rely on the collective motion of flexible appendices to…
We discuss the dynamics of a generalized three-sphere microswimmer in which the spheres are connected by two elastic springs. The natural length of each spring is assumed to undergo a prescribed cyclic change. We analytically obtain the…
The swimming of a deformable planar slab in a viscous incompressible fluid is studied on the basis of the Navier-Stokes equations. A continuum of plane wave displacements, symmetric on both sides of the slab and characterized by a…
The swimming of a sphere immersed in a viscous incompressible fluid with inertia is studied for surface modulations of small amplitude on the basis of the Navier-Stokes equations. The mean swimming velocity and the mean rate of dissipation…
We describe a method, based on techniques used in molecular dynamics, for simulating the inertialess dynamics of an elastic filament immersed in a fluid. The model is used to study the "one-armed swimmer". That is, a flexible appendage…
Pairwise hydrodynamic interactions of microswimmers form the fundamental building blocks for understanding their more complex collective behaviors. In this work, we revisit the canonical problem of two interacting squirmers swimming along…