Related papers: Swimming efficiency in a shear-thinning fluid
We study the trajectories of a model microorganism inside three-dimensional channels with square and rectangular cross-sections. Using (i) numerical simulations based on lattice-Boltzmann method, and (ii) analytical expressions using…
Simple, linear equations relate microscopic swimmers to the corresponding gliders and pumps. They have the following set of consequences: The swimming velocity of free swimmers can be inferred from the force on the tethered swimmer and vice…
Efficient locomotion is important for the evolution of complex life, yet the physical principles selecting specific swimming strokes often remain entangled with biological constraints. In viscous fluids, the scallop theorem constrains the…
The macroscopic properties of polymeric fluids are inherited from the material properties of the fibers embedded in the solvent. The behavior of such passive fibers in flow has been of interest in a wide range of systems, including cellular…
Common gastropods such as snails crawl on a solid substrate by propagating muscular waves of shear stress on a viscoelastic mucus. Producing the mucus accounts for the largest component in the gastropod's energy budget, more than twenty…
We explore a mechanism of the anomalous rheology of active suspensions by hydrodynamic simulations using model pusher swimmers. Our simulations demonstrate that hydrodynamic interactions under shear flow systematically orient swimmers along…
Understanding how the physical properties of a fluid influence bacterial behavior is essential for explaining how microorganisms interact with their environment and with animal hosts. Here, we examine how changes in fluid viscosity and…
The motion of biological micro-robots -- similar to that of swimming microorganisms such as bacteria or spermatozoa -- is governed by different physical rules than what we experience in our daily life. This is particularly due to the…
Inspired by recent experiments using synthetic microswimmers to manipulate droplets, we investigate the low-Reynolds-number locomotion of a model swimmer (a spherical squirmer) encapsulated inside a droplet of comparable size in another…
The flow field created by swimming microorganisms not only enables their locomotion but also leads to advective transport of nutrients. In this paper we address analytically and computationally the link between unsteady feeding and unsteady…
Suitable asymmetric microstructures can be used to control the direction of motion in microorganism populations. This rectification process makes it possible to accumulate swimmers in a region of space or to sort different swimmers. Here we…
Elongate animals and robots use undulatory body waves to locomote through diverse environments. Geometric mechanics provides a framework to model and optimize such systems in highly damped environments, connecting a prescribed shape change…
The intricate wobbling motion of flagellated bacteria, characterized by the periodic precession of the cell body, is a determinant factor in their motility and navigation within complex fluid environments. While well-studied in quiescent…
The ciliary locomotion and feeding of an axisymmetric micro-swimmer in a complex fluid whose viscosity depends on nutrient concentration are investigated numerically. The micro-swimmer is modeled as having spheroidal geometry, and ciliary…
Cilia and flagella are hair-like appendages that protrude from the surface of a variety of eukaryotic cells and deform in a wavelike fashion to transport fluids and propel cells. Motivated by the ubiquity of non-Newtonian fluids in biology,…
In this paper, we give formulas for the swimming of simplified two-dimensional bodies in complex fluids using the reciprocal theorem. By way of these formulas we calculate the swimming velocity due to small-amplitude deformations on the…
The rheological properties of tangentially propelled flexible polymers under linear shear flow are studied by computer simulations and are compared with analytical calculations. We find a significant impact of the coupled nonequilibrium…
Transport phenomena of microswimmers in fluid flows play a crucial role in various biological processes, including bioconvection and cell sorting. In this paper, we investigate the dispersion behavior of chiral microswimmers in a simple…
We discuss the locomotion of a three-sphere microswimmer in a viscoelastic structured fluid characterized by typical length and time scales. We derive a general expression to link the average swimming velocity to the sphere mobilities. In…
Micro-swimmer locomotion in heterogeneous media is increasingly relevant in biological physics due to the prevalence of microorganisms in complex environments. A model for such porous media is the Brinkman fluid which accounts for a sparse…