Related papers: Enhanced active swimming in viscoelastic fluids
Undulatory slender objects have been a central theme in the hydrodynamics of swimming at low Reynolds number, where the slender body is usually assumed to be inextensible, although some microorganisms and artificial microrobots largely…
The survival of many microorganisms, like \textit{Leptospira} or \textit{Spiroplasma} bacteria, can depend on their ability to navigate towards regions of favorable viscosity. While this ability, called viscotaxis, has been observed in…
Suspensions of unicellular microswimmers such as flagellated bacteria or motile algae exhibit spontaneous density heterogeneities at large enough concentrations. Based on the relative location of the biological actuation appendages i.e.…
Efficient locomotion is important for the evolution of complex life, yet the physical principles selecting specific swimming strokes often remain entangled with biological constraints. In viscous fluids, the scallop theorem constrains the…
Particle motion in non-Newtonian fluids can be markedly different than in Newtonian fluids. Here we look at the change in dynamics for a few problems involving rigid spherical particles in shear-thinning fluids in the absence of inertia. We…
Reciprocal movement cannot be used for locomotion at low-Reynolds number in an infinite fluid or near a rigid surface. Here we show that this limitation is relaxed for a body performing reciprocal motions near a deformable interface. Using…
Propulsion through fluids is a key component in the life cycle of many microbes, be it in development, infection, or simply finding nutrients. In systems of biomedical relevance, this propulsion is often through polymer suspensions that…
The swimming of a two-sphere system oscillating in a viscous fluidis studied on the basis of simplified equations of motion which take account of both friction and inertial effects. In the model the friction follows from an Oseen…
We show that a two-dimensional system of flocking microswimmers interacting hydrodynamically can be expressed using a Hamiltonian formalism. The Hamiltonian depends strictly on the angles between the particles and their swimming…
In this work, we investigate the dynamics of the number density fluctuations of a dilute suspension of active particles in a linear viscoelastic fluid. We propose a model for the frequency-dependent diffusion coefficient of the active…
An analytical theory is developed to describe the dynamics of a closed lipid bilayer membrane (vesicle) freely suspended in a general linear flow. Considering a nearly spherical shape, the solution to the creeping-flow equations is obtained…
Active turbulence is a paradigmatic and fascinating example of self-organized motion at large scales occurring in active matter. We employ massive hydrodynamic simulations of suspensions of resolved model microswimmers to tackle the…
We investigate the self-locomotion of an elongated microswimmer by virtue of the unidirectional tangential surface treadmilling. We show that the propulsion could be almost frictionless, as the microswimmer is propelled forward with the…
To explore and react to their environment, living micro-swimmers have developed sophisticated strategies for locomotion - in particular, motility with multiple gaits. To understand the physical principles associated with such a behavioural…
Cooperation between micro-organisms give rise to novel phenomena like clustering, swarming in suspension. We study the collective behavior of the artificial swimmer called Taylor line at low Reynolds number using multi-particle collision…
The paper develops a continuum theory of weak viscoelastic nematodynamics of Maxwell type. It may describe the molecular elasticity effects in mono-domain flows of liquid crystalline polymers as well as the viscoelastic effects in…
Undulatory locomotion is ubiquitous in nature and observed in different media, from the swimming of flagellated microorganisms in biological fluids, to the slithering of snakes on land, or the locomotion of sandfish lizards in sand. Despite…
E. M. Purcell showed that a body has to perform non-reciprocal motion in order to propel itself in a highly viscous environment. The swimmer with one degree of freedom is bound to do reciprocal motion, whereby the center of mass of the…
Micro-organisms propel themselves in viscous environments by the periodic, nonreciprocal beating of slender appendages known as flagella. Active materials have been widely exploited to mimic this form of locomotion. However, the realization…
Anisotropic viscous drag is usually believed to be a requirement for the low Reynolds number locomotion of slender bodies such as flagella and cilia. Here we show that locomotion under isotropic drag is possible for extensible slender…