Related papers: Active particles in periodic lattices
E. M. Purcell showed that a body has to perform non-reciprocal motion in order to propel itself in a highly viscous environment. The swimmer with one degree of freedom is bound to do reciprocal motion, whereby the center of mass of the…
A minimal design for a molecular swimmer is proposed that is a based on a mechanochemical propulsion mechanism. Conformational changes are induced by electrostatic actuation when specific parts of the molecule temporarily acquire net…
The possibility of microscopic swimming by extraction of energy from an external flow is discussed, focusing on the migration of a simple trimer across a linear shear flow. The geometric properties of swimming, together with the possible…
We develop a maximum likelihood method to infer relevant physical properties of elongated active particles. Using individual trajectories of advected swimmers as input, we are able to accurately determine their rotational diffusion…
Geometric confinements are frequently encountered in the biological world and strongly affect the stability, topology, and transport properties of active suspensions in viscous flow. Based on a far-field analytical model, the…
Biological microswimmers often encounter deformable boundaries in physiological conditions; for instance, the viscoelastic walls of reproductive tract during migration of spermatozoa, or host tissue during early bacterial biofilm formation.…
Phoretic swimmers are a class of artificial active particles that has received significant attention in recent years. By making use of self-generated gradients (e.g. in temperature, electric potential or some chemical product) phoretic…
We describe an efficient and parsimonious matrix-based theory for studying the ensemble behavior of self-propellers and active swimmers, such as nanomotors or motile bacteria, that are typically studied by differential-equation-based…
We study a simple model of periodic contraction and extension of large intruders in a granular bed to understand the mechanism for swimming in an otherwise solid media. Using an event-driven simulation, we find optimal conditions that…
We study theoretically the behavior of a class of hydrodynamic dipoles. This study is motivated by recent experiments on synthetic and biological swimmers in microfluidic \textit{Hele-Shaw} type geometries. Under such confinement, a…
The net steady state flow pattern of a distorting sphere is studied in the framework of the bilinear theory of swimming at low Reynolds number. It is argued that the starting point of a theory of interacting active particles should be based…
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…
The acoustofluidic method holds great promise for manipulating microorganisms. When exposed to the steady vortex structures of acoustic streaming flow, these microorganisms exhibit intriguing dynamic behaviors, such as hydrodynamic trapping…
Natural habitats of most living microorganisms are distinguished by a complex structure often formed by a porous medium such as soil. The dynamics and transport properties of motile microorganisms are strongly affected by crowded and…
We develop a general hydrodynamic theory describing a system of interacting actively propelling particles of arbitrary shape suspended in a viscous fluid. We model the active part of the particle motion using a slip velocity prescribed on…
Contrary to microbial taxis, where a tactic response to external stimuli is controlled by complex chemical pathways acting like sensor-actuator loops, taxis of artificial microswimmers is a purely stochastic effect associated with a…
We study the effect of a nearby planar wall on the propulsion of a spherical phoretic micro-swimmer driven by reactions on its surface. An asymmetric coverage of catalysts on its surface which absorb reactants and generate products gives…
Synthetic microswimmers mimicking biological movements at the microscale have been developed in recent years. Actuating helical magnetic materials with a homogeneous rotating magnetic field is one of the most widespread techniques for…
The motion of particles suspended in environmental turbulence is relevant to many scientific fields, from sediment transport to biological interactions to underwater robotics. At very small scales and simple shapes, we are able to…
Many fascinating properties of biological active matter crucially depend on the capacity of constituting entities to perform directed motion, e.g., molecular motors transporting vesicles inside cells or bacteria searching for food. While…