Related papers: Microorganism Billiards
In standard (mathematical) billiards a point particle moves uniformly in a billiard table with elastic reflections off the boundary. We show that in transition from mathematical billiards to physical billiards, where a finite size hard…
Micro-organisms usually can swim in their liquid environment by flagellar or ciliary beating. In this numerical work, we analyze the influence of flagellar beating on the orbits of a swimming cell in a shear flow. We also calculate the…
Living microorganisms are capable of a tactic response to external stimuli by swimming towards or away from the stimulus source; they do so by adapting their tactic signal transduction pathways to the environment. Their self-motility thus…
The microalga Chlamydomonas Reinhardtii (CR) is used here as a model system to study the effect of complex environments on the swimming of micro-organisms. Its motion can be modelled by a run and tumble mechanism so that it describes a…
We theoretically and computationally study the low-Reynolds-number hydrodynamics of a linear active microswimmer surfing on a compressible thin fluid layer characterized by an odd viscosity. Since the underlying three-dimensional fluid is…
Many microorganisms swim through gels and non-Newtonian fluids in their natural environments. In this paper, we focus on microorganisms which use flagella for propulsion. We address how swimming velocities are affected in nonlinearly…
Many species of phytoplankton migrate vertically near the surface of the ocean, either in search of light or nutrients. These motile organisms are affected by ocean waves at the surface. We derive a set of wave-averaged equations to…
There is increasing evidence that mammalian cells not only crawl on substrates but can also swim in fluids. To elucidate the mechanisms of the onset of motility of cells in suspension, a model which couples actin and myosin kinetics to…
Rounding border effects at the escape point of open integrable billiards are analyzed via the escape times statistics and emission angles. The model is the rectangular billiard and the shape of the escape point is assumed to have a…
Within classical optics, one may add microscopic "roughness" to a macroscopically flat mirror so that parallel rays of a given angle are reflected at different outgoing angles. Taking the limit (as the roughness becomes increasingly…
Microorganisms ofter move in confined, disordered environments, where hydrodynamic couplings can modify their transport behavior. Using extensive finite-element simulations, we investigate the dynamics of microswimmers -- modeled as…
Particles kicked by external forces to produce mobility distinct from thermal diffusion are an iconic feature of the active matter problem. Here, we map this onto a minimal model for experiment and theory covering the wide time and length…
Recent research has shown that motile cells can adapt their mode of propulsion depending on the environment in which they find themselves. One mode is swimming by blebbing or other shape changes, and in this paper we analyze a class of…
Motivated by recent experiments, we consider the hydrodynamic capture of a microswimmer near a stationary spherical obstacle. Simulations of model equations show that a swimmer approaching a small spherical colloid is simply scattered. In…
Motivated by recent experiments demonstrating that motile algae get trapped in draining foams, we study the trajectories of microorganisms confined in model foam channels (section of a Plateau border). We track single Chlamydomonas…
Like ants, some microorganisms are known to leave trails on surfaces to communicate. We explore how trail-mediated self-interaction could affect the behavior of individual microorganisms when diffusive spreading of the trail is negligible…
The diffusion of active microscopic organisms in complex environments plays an important role in a wide range of biological phenomena from cell colony growth to single organism transport. Here, we investigate theoretically and…
Geometric confinement plays an important role in the dynamics of natural and synthetic microswimmers from bacterial cells to self-propelled particles in high-throughput microfluidic devices. However, little is known about the effects of…
The twisting and writhing of a cell body and associated mechanical stresses is an underappreciated constraint on microbial self-propulsion. Multi-flagellated bacteria can even buckle and writhe under their own activity as they swim through…
There are many examples of driven and active matter systems containing particles that exhibit circular motion with different chiralities, such as swimming bacteria near surfaces or certain types of self-driven colloidal particles. Circular…