Related papers: Stirrers and movers actuated by oscillating fields

We show that Brownian motion is spatially not symmetric for mesoscopic particles embedded in a fluid if the particle is not in thermal equilibrium and its shape is not spherical. In view of applications on molecular motors in biological…

This study aims to examine experimental conditions in which active particles are forced by their surroundings to move forward and backward in a continuous oscillatory manner. The experimental design is based on using a vibrating…

Bidirectional variants of stochastic many particle models for transport by molecular motors show a strong tendency to form macroscopic clusters on static lattices. Inspired by the fact that the microscopic tracks for molecular motors are…

In a sharp contrast to the response of silica particles we show that the metal-dielectric Janus particles with boojum defects in a nematic liquid crystal are self-propelled under the action of an electric field applied perpendicular to the…

In active matter systems, self-propelled particles can self-organize to undergo collective motion, leading to persistent dynamical behavior out of equilibrium. In cells, cytoskeletal filaments and motor proteins self-organize into complex…

We study here the spontaneous clustering of a submonolayer of grains under horizontal circular shaking. The clustering of grains occurs when increasing the oscillation amplitude beyond a threshold. The dense area travels in a circular…

We study, numerically, the collective dynamics of self-rotating nonaligning particles by considering a monolayer of spheres driven by constant clockwise or counterclockwise torques. We show that hydrodynamic interactions alter the emergence…

Directional locking occurs when a particle moving over a periodic substrate becomes constrained to travel along certain substrate symmetry directions. Such locking effects arise for colloids and superconducting vortices moving over ordered…

Using continuum simulations, we show that under a sinusoidal electric field, liquid crystal skyrmions undergo periodic shape oscillations which produce controlled directed motion. The speed of the skyrmion is non-monotonic in the frequency…

A system of particles with motility variable in terms of a vision-type of perception is here investigated by a combination of Langevin dynamics simulations in two-dimensional systems and an analytical approach based on conservation law…

Mutually repelling particles form spontaneously ordered clusters when forced into confinement. The clusters may adopt similar spatial arrangements even if the underlying particle interactions are contrastingly different. Here we demonstrate…

Motivated by the recent work in skyrmions and active chiral matter systems, we examine pairs and small clusters of repulsively interacting point particles in the limit where the dynamics is dominated by the Magnus force. We find that…

Locomotion is essential for living cells. It enables bacteria and algae to explore space for food, cancer to spread, and immune system to fight infections. Motile cells display trajectories of intriguing complexity, from regular (e.g.…

Pour sand into a container and only the grains near the top surface move. The collective motion associated with the translational and rotational energy of the grains in a thin flowing layer is quickly dissipated as friction through…

Steering of magnetic nano-/microhelices by a rotating magnetic field is considered as a promising technique for controlled navigation of tiny objects through viscous fluidic environments. It has been recently demonstrated that simple…

Advances in synthetic methods have spawned an array of nanoparticles and bio-inspired molecules of diverse shapes and interaction geometries. Recent experiments indicate that such anisotropic particles exhibit a variety of 'nonclassical'…

Contacts between particles in dense, sheared suspensions are believed to underpin much of their rheology. Roughness and adhesion are known to constrain the relative motion of particles, and thus globally affect the shear response, but an…

Self-propelled particles have been experimentally shown to orbit spherical obstacles and move along surfaces. Here, we theoretically and numerically investigate this behavior for a hydrodynamic squirmer interacting with spherical objects…

The dynamics, velocity fluctuations, and particle-plate interactions for a 2D granular gas of shaken, non-spherical particles are studied experimentally. The experiment consists of a horizontal plate that is vertically oscillated to drive…

Integrating topologically stabilized magnetic textures such as skyrmions as nanoscale information carriers into future technologies requires the reliable control by electric currents. Here, we uncover that the relevant skyrmion Hall effect,…