Related papers: Tractionless Self-Propulsion of Active Drops
Autonomous locomotion is a ubiquitous phenomenon in biology and in physics of active systems at microscopic scale. This includes prokaryotic, eukaryotic cells (crawling and swimming) and artificial swimmers. An outstanding feature is the…
We study a model of self propelled particles exhibiting run and tumble dynamics on lattice. This non-Brownian diffusion is characterised by a random walk with a finite persistence length between changes of direction, and is inspired by the…
The motion of a fluid induced by thermal gradients in the absence of driving forces is known as thermo-osmosis. The physical explanation of this phenomenon stems from the emergence of gradients in the tangential pressure due to the presence…
A living cell actively generates traction forces on its environment with its actin cytoskeleton. These forces deform the cell elastic substrate which, in turn, affects the traction forces exerted by the cell and can consequently modify the…
An isolated charge-neutral droplet in a uniform electric field experiences no net force. However, a droplet pair can move in response to field-induced dipolar and hydrodynamic interactions. If the droplets are identical, the center of mass…
The leaves of many plants are superhydrophobic, a property that may have evolved to clean the leaves by encouraging water droplets to bead up and roll off. Superhydrophobic surfaces can also exhibit reduced friction and liquids flowing over…
In the last years self-motile droplets attracted the attention of scientists from different fields ranging from applied biology to theoretical physics, because of their promising technological applications and important biological…
We report curling self-propulsion in aqueous emulsions of common mesogenic compounds. Nematic liquid crystal droplets self-propel in a surfactant solution with concentrations above the critical micelle concentration while undergoing…
The run-and-tumble dynamics of bacteria, as exhibited by \textit{E. coli}, offers a simple experimental realization of non-Brownian, yet diffusive, particles. Here we present some analytic and numerical results for models of the ideal…
How to make small liquid droplets move spontaneously and directionally on solid surfaces is a challenge in lab-on-chip technologies, DNA analysis, and heat exchangers. The best-known mechanism, a wettability gradient, does not move droplets…
We examine the collective states of run-and-tumble active matter disks driven over a periodic obstacle array. When the drive is applied along a symmetry direction of the array, we find a clog-free uniform liquid state for low activity,…
Many active fluid systems encountered in biology are set in total geometric confinement. Cytoplasmic streaming in plant cells is a prominent and ubiquitous example, in which cargo-carrying molecular motors move along polymer filaments and…
Fluid droplets can be induced to move over rigid or flexible surfaces under external or body forces. We describe the effect of variations in material properties of a flexible substrate as a mechanism for motion. In this paper, we consider a…
Several types of active agents self-propel by spinning around their propulsion axis, thus behaving as active screws. Examples include cytoskeletal filaments in gliding assays, magnetically-driven colloidal helices, and microorganisms like…
The dynamic frictional force between solid surfaces in relative motion differs from the static force needed to initiate motion, but this distinction is not usually thought to occur for liquid drops moving on a solid. Recent experiments…
We report an experimental study of liquid drops moving against gravity, when placed on a vertically vibrating inclined plate, which is partially wetted by the drop. The frequency of vibrations ranges from 30 to 200 Hz, and, above a…
How internal forces are transduced into motion through soft, fluid membranes remains a fundamental question in the study of active systems. To investigate this coupling, we develop a minimal system consisting of a single ferromagnetic…
Typically the motion of self-propelled active particles is described in a quiescent environment establishing an inertial frame of reference. Here we assume that friction, self-propulsion and uctuations occur relative to a non-inertial frame…
The controlled handling of liquids and colloidal suspensions as they interact with surfaces, targeting a broad palette of related functionalities, is of great importance in science, technology, and nature. When small liquid volumes need to…
We investigate a model for the dynamics of a solid object, which moves over a randomly vibrating solid surface and is subject to a constant external force. The dry friction between the two solids is modeled phenomenologically as being…