Related papers: Circularly-confined microswimmers exhibit multiple…
Many microswimmers are inherently chiral, and this chirality can introduce fascinating behaviors in a collection of microswimmers. The dynamics become even more intriguing when two types of microswimmers with distinct chirality are mixed.…
Bioconvection is the prototypical active matter system for hydrodynamic instabilities and pattern formation in suspensions of biased swimming microorganisms, particularly at the dilute end of the concentration spectrum where cell-cell…
We investigate the dynamics of model microswimmers under confinement, in cylindrical geometries, by means of three dimensional direct numerical calculations with fully resolved hydrodynamics. Such swimmers are known to show collective…
Cells swimming in confined environments are attracted by surfaces. We measure the steady-state distribution of smooth-swimming bacteria (Escherichia coli) between two glass plates. In agreement with earlier studies, we find a strong…
Swimming cells and microorganisms must often move though complex fluids that contain an immersed microstructure such as polymer molecules, or filaments. In many important biological processes, such as mammalian reproduction and bacterial…
Microswimmers exhibit more diverse behavior in quasi-two dimensions than in three dimensions. Such behavior remains elusive due to the analytical difficulty of dealing with two parallel solid boundaries. The existence of additional…
Ciliated microswimmers and flagellated bacteria alter their swimming trajectories to follow the direction of an applied electric field exhibiting electrotaxis. Both for matters of application and physical modelling, it is instructive to…
Low Reynolds number direct simulations of large populations of hydrodynamically interacting swimming particles confined between planar walls are performed. The results of simulations are compared with a theory that describes dilute…
Bacteria in biofilms form complex structures and can collectively migrate within mobile aggregates, which is referred to as swarming. This behavior is influenced by a combination of various factors, including morphological characteristics…
Motility is a fundamental survival strategy of bacteria to navigate porous environments. Swimming cells thrive in quiescent wetlands and sediments at the bottom of the marine water column, where they mediate many essential biogeochemical…
Biological and artificial microswimmers often have to propel through a variety of environments, ranging from heterogeneous suspending media to strong geometrical confinement. Under confinement, local flow fields generated by microswimmers,…
A striking feature of the collective behavior of spherical microswimmers is that for sufficiently strong self-propulsion they phase-separate into a dense cluster coexisting with a low-density dis- ordered surrounding. Extending our previous…
We analyze a minimal model for a rigid spherical microswimmer and explore the consequences of its extended surface on the interplay between its self-propulsion and flow properties. The model is the first order representation of…
Some microorganisms, such as spermatozoa, synchronize their flagella when swimming in close proximity. Using a simplified model (two infinite, parallel, two-dimensional waving sheets), we show that phase-locking arises from hydrodynamics…
We investigate the emergence of global alignment in colonies of dividing rod-shaped cells under confinement. Using molecular dynamics simulations and continuous modeling, we demonstrate that geometrical anisotropies in the confining…
Biological and artificial microswimmers often self-propel in external flows of vortical nature; relevant examples include algae in small-scale ocean eddies, spermatozoa in uterine peristaltic flows and bacteria in microfluidic devices. A…
The majority of studies on self-propelled particles and microswimmers concentrates on objects that do not feature a deterministic bending of their trajectory. However, perfect axial symmetry is hardly found in reality, and shape-asymmetric…
Geometric confinements are frequently encountered in soft matter systems and in particular significantly alter the dynamics of swimming microorganisms in viscous media. Surface-related effects on the motility of microswimmers can lead to…
Flagellar-driven locomotion plays a critical role in bacterial attachment and colonization of surfaces, contributing to the risks of contamination and infection. Tremendous attempts to uncover the underlying principles governing bacterial…
Living creatures exhibit a remarkable diversity of locomotion mechanisms, evolving structures specialised for interacting with their environment. In the vast majority of cases, locomotor behaviours such as flying, crawling, and running, are…