Related papers: Chemotaxis of artificial microswimmers in active d…
We formulate and solve the equations governing the dynamics of a microscopic artificial swimmer composed of a head and of a tail made of a thin film of permanent magnetic material. This is a variant of the model swimmer proposed by Dreyfus…
The design of artificial microswimmers is often inspired by the strategies of natural microorganisms. Many of these creatures exploit the fact that elasticity breaks the time-reversal symmetry of motion at low Reynolds numbers, but this…
Microswimmers in nature often experience spatial gradients of viscosity. In this work we develop theoretical results for the dynamics of active particles, biological or otherwise, swimming through viscosity gradients. We model the active…
Both natural and artificial small-scale swimmers may often self-propel in environments subject to complex geometrical constraints. While most past theoretical work on low-Reynolds number locomotion addressed idealised geometrical…
The self-propelled motion of microscopic bodies immersed in a fluid medium is studied using molecular dynamics simulation. The advantage of the atomistic approach is that the detailed level of description allows complete freedom in…
We describe a method for programming the autonomous navigation of active colloidal particles in response to spatial gradients in a scalar stimulus. Functional behaviors such as positive or negative chemotaxis are encoded in the particle…
Microscopic active droplets are able to swim autonomously in viscous flows: this puzzling feature stems from solute exchanges with the surrounding fluid via surface reactions or their spontaneous solubilisation, and the interfacial flows…
We study the detention statistics of self-propelling droplet microswimmers attaching to microfluidic pillars. These droplets show negative autochemotaxis: they shed a persistent repulsive trail of spent fuel that biases them to detach from…
Self-propelled active particles exhibit delayed responses to environmental changes, modulating their propulsion speed through intrinsic sensing and feedback mechanisms. This adaptive behavior fundamentally determines their dynamics and…
In the presence of a laminar shear flow, the diffusion of passive colloidal particles is enhanced in the direction parallel to the flow. This classical phenomenon is known as Taylor-Aris dispersion. Besides, microorganisms, such as active…
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…
Motility is a basic feature of living microorganisms, and how it works is often determined by environmental cues. Recent efforts have focused on develop- ing artificial systems that can mimic microorganisms, and in particular their…
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…
Magnetotaxis is a well known phenomenon in swimming microorganisms which sense magnetic fields e.g. by incorporating crystalline magnetosomes. In designing artificial active matter with tunable dynamics, external magnetic fields can provide…
Self-propelled bacteria are marvels of nature with a potential to power dynamic materials and microsystems of the future. The challenge is in commanding their chaotic behavior. By dispersing swimming Bacillus subtilis in a…
Particles moving along curved trajectories will diffuse if the curvature fluctuates sufficiently in either magnitude or orientation. We consider particles moving at a constant speed with either a fixed or with a Gaussian distributed…
Systems of motile microorganisms exhibit a multitude of collective phenomena, including motility-induced phase separation and turbulence. Sensing of the environment and adaptation of movement plays an essential role in the emergent…
The swimming direction of biological or artificial microscale swimmers tends to be randomised over long time-scales by thermal fluctuations. Bacteria use various strategies to bias swimming behaviour and achieve directed motion against a…
Many chemotactic bacteria inhabit environments in which chemicals appear as localized pulses and evolve by processes such as diffusion and mixing. We show that, in such environments, physical limits on the accuracy of temporal gradient…
We reveal that the mechanical pulsation of locally synchronised particles is a generic route to propagate deformation waves. We consider a model of dense repulsive particles whose activity drives periodic change in size of each individual.…