Related papers: Symmetric shear banding and swarming vortices in b…
We demonstrate a novel shear-induced mechanism for growth of concentration fluctuations in a bacterial suspension. Using a linear stability analysis, a homogeneously sheared suspension is shown to support exponentially growing layering…
The rheological response under simple shear of an active suspension of Escherichia coli is determined in a large range of shear rates and concentrations. The effective viscosity and the time scales characterizing the bacterial organization…
We point out unconventional mechanical properties of confined active fluids, such as bacterial suspensions, under shear. Using a minimal model of an active liquid crystal with no free parameters, we predict the existence of a window of…
Many soft materials, including foams, dense emulsions, micro gel bead suspensions, star polymers, dense packing of surfactant onion micelles, and textured morphologies of liquid crystals, share the basic "glassy" features of structural…
The rheology of semidilute bacterial suspensions is studied with the tools of kinetic theory, considering binary interactions, going beyond the ideal gas approximation. Two models for the interactions are considered, which encompass both…
We study theoretically the formation of shear bands in time-dependent flows of polymeric and wormlike micellar surfactant fluids, focussing on the protocols of step shear stress, step shear strain (or in practice a rapid strain ramp), and…
Self-organized dynamic patterns in dense active matter are striking manifestations of non-equilibrium physics. A prominent example is the macroscopic elliptical motion observed in quasi-2D bacterial suspensions, which has lacked a physical…
Even in simple geometries many complex fluids display non-trivial flow fields, with regions where shear is concentrated. The possibility for such shear banding has been known since several decades, but the recent years have seen an upsurge…
The sedimentation process in a suspension of bacteria is the result of the competition between gravity and the intrinsic motion of the microorganisms. We perform simulations of run-and-tumble "squirmers" that move in a fluid medium,…
It has recently been argued that steady-state vorticity bands cannot arise in shear thickening suspensions, because the normal stress imbalance across the interface between the bands will set up particle migrations. In this Letter, we…
As a paradigmatic model of active fluids, bacterial suspensions show intriguing rheological responses drastically different from their counterpart colloidal suspensions. Although the flow of bulk bacterial suspensions has been extensively…
Transport at small scales is classically understood within an equilibrium framework, where dispersion theory successfully describes shear-enhanced diffusion for passive particles in the continuum limit. However, as most bacteria can move on…
The occurence of shear bands in a complex fluid is generally understood as resulting from a structural evolution of the material under shear, which leads (from a theoretical perspective) to a non-monotonic stationnary flow curve related to…
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…
Dense suspensions of swimming bacteria are known to exhibit collective behaviour arising from the interplay of steric and hydrodynamic interactions. Unconfined suspensions exhibit transient, recurring vortices and jets, whereas those…
Controlling bacterial surface adhesion and subsequent biofilm formation in fluid systems is crucial for the safety and efficacy of medical and industrial processes. Here, we theoretically examine the transport of bacteria close to surfaces,…
Bacterial swimming is well characterized in uniform liquids at rest. The natural habitat of bacterial swimmers, however, is often dominated by moving fluids and interfaces, resulting in shear flows that may strongly alter bacterial…
Active matter exhibits various forms of non-equilibrium states in the absence of external forcing, including macroscopic steady-state currents. Such states are often too complex to be modelled from first principles and our understanding of…
Recent flow cessation experiments on soft materials have shown a counter-intuitive non-monotonic relaxation of the shear stress: following the switch-off of a steady imposed shear flow, the stress initially decays before later increasing…
Bacterial suspensions and other active fluids are known to develop highly dynamical vortex states, denoted as active or mesoscale turbulence. We reveal the pronounced effect of non-Newtonian rheological conditions on these turbulent states,…