Related papers: Active colloids in complex fluids
Active nematic fluids exhibit complex dynamics in both bulk and in simple confining geometries. However, complex confining geometries could have substantial impact on active spontaneous flows. Using multiparticle collision dynamics…
Many biological fluids have polymeric microstructures and display non-Newtonian rheology. We take advantage of such nonlinear fluid behavior and combine it with geometrical symmetry-breaking to design a novel small-scale propeller able to…
Self-propelled nanoparticles moving through liquids offer the possibility of creating advanced applications where such nanoswimmers can operate as artificial molecular-sized motors. Achieving control over the motion of nanoswimmers is a…
Self-propelled colloids (swimmers) in confining geometries follow trajectories determined by hydrodynamic interactions with the bounding surfaces. However, typically these interactions are ignored or truncated to lowest order. We…
While the dynamics of polymer chains in equilibrium media is well understood by now, the polymer dynamics in active non-equilibrium environments can be very different. Here we study the dynamics of polymers in a viscous medium containing…
Many biological fluids are composed of suspended polymers immersed in a viscous fluid. A prime example is mucus, where the polymers are also known to form a network. While the presence of this microstructure is linked with an overall…
Many living and artificial systems show a similar emergent behavior and collective motions on different scales, starting from swarms of bacteria to synthetic active particles, herds of mammals and crowds of people. What all these systems…
Microorganisms can preferentially orient and move along gradients of a chemo-attractant (i.e., chemotax) while colonies of many microorganisms can collectively undergo complex dynamics in response to chemo-attractants that they themselves…
Life mechanics, an emerging field, focuses on the self-organizing forces and motions within living systems. This study introduces the novel concept of active force, generated by mind-body interactions, as an essential element in…
Chemically active colloids or enzymes cluster into dense droplets driven by their phoretic response to collectively generated chemical gradients. Employing Brownian dynamics simulation techniques, our study of the dynamics of such a…
Within the framework of mode-coupling theory, we present a simple model for describing dense assemblies of active (self-propelled) spherical colloidal particles. For isotropic suspensions, we demonstrate that the glass transition is shifted…
Systems composed of strongly interacting self-propelled particles can form a spontaneously flowing polar active fluid. The study of the connection between the microscopic dynamics of a single such particle and the macroscopic dynamics of…
Self-powered motion in catalytic colloidal particles provides a compelling example of active matter, i.e. systems that engage in single-particle and collective behavior far from equilibrium. The long-time, long-distance behavior of such…
Can activity be transmitted from smaller to larger scales? We report on such a transfer from a homogeneous active medium to a Newtonian spherical probe. The active medium consists of faster and dilute self-propelled particles, modeled as…
Collective behavior of self-propelled particles is observed on a microscale for swimmers such as sperm and bacteria as well as for protein filaments in motility assays. The properties of such systems depend both on their dimensionality and…
Active colloidal microswimmers serve as archetypical active fluid systems, and as models for biological swimmers. Here, by studying in detail their velocity traces, we find robust power-law intermittency with system-dependent exponential…
The quest for designing new self-propelled colloids is fuelled by the demand for simple experimental models to study the collective behaviour of their more complex natural counterparts. Most synthetic self-propelled particles move by…
The dynamics of self-locomotion of active particles in aligned or liquid crystalline fluids strongly deviates from that in simple isotropic media. We explore the long-time dynamics of a swimmer moving in a three-dimensional smectic liquid…
We study the spatio-temporal dynamics of a model of polar active fluid in two dimensions. The system exhibits a transition from an isotropic to a polarized state as a function of density. The uniform polarized state is, however, unstable…
We here present two simplified models aimed at describing the long-term, irregular behaviours observed in the rheological response of certain complex fluids, such as periodic oscillations or chaotic-like variations. Both models exploit the…