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We consider the interplay between persistent motion, which is a generic property of active particles, and a recoil interaction which causes particles to jump apart on contact. The recoil interaction exemplifies an active contact interaction…
Coherence evolution of two food web models can be obtained under the stirring effect of chaotic advection. Each food web model sustains a three--level trophic system composed of interacting predators, consumers and vegetation. These…
We present simulations that reveal a surprisingly large effect of hydrodynamic coupling on the speed of thermal ratchet motors. The model that we use considers particles performing thermal ratchet motion in a hydrodynamic solvent. Using…
In nature, metachronal coordination is an efficient strategy for fluid pumping and self-propulsion. Yet, mimetic systems for this type of organization are scarce. Recently, metachronal motion was observed in a bead-based magnetocapillary…
We experimentally study a scallop-like swimmer with reciprocally flapping wings in a nearly frictionless, cohesive granular medium consisting of hydrogel spheres. Significant locomotion is found when the swimmer's flapping frequency matches…
Swimming organisms in their natural habitat navigate through a wide array of geometries and chemical environments. Interaction with the boundaries is ubiquitous and can significantly modify the swimming characteristics of the organism as…
We concentrate on kinetic models for swarming with individuals interacting through self-propelling and friction forces, alignment and noise. We assume that the velocity of each individual relaxes to the mean velocity. In our present case,…
Liquid water oceans are at the center of our search for life on exoplanets because water is a strict requirement for life as we know it. However, oceans are dynamic habitats---and some oceans may be better hosts for life than others. In…
Nonequilibrium condensate systems such as exciton-polariton condensates are capable of supporting a spontaneous vortex nucleation. The spatial inhomogeneity of pumping field or/and disordered potential creates velocity flow fields that may…
The collective swimming of soft robots in an infinite viscous fluid is an emergent phenomenon due to the non-reciprocal hydrodynamic interactions between individual swimmers. These physical interactions give rise to unique spatiotemporal…
Microscale fluid flows generated by ensembles of beating eukaryotic flagella are crucial to fundamental processes such as development, motility and sensing. Despite significant experimental and theoretical progress, the underlying physical…
Marine plankton are usually modeled as settling elongated micro-swimmers. For the first time, we consider the torque induced by fluid inertia on such swimmers, and we discover that they spontaneously swim in the direction opposite 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…
Recent experiments have shown that floating ferromagnetic beads, under the influence of an oscillating background magnetic field, can move along a liquid-air interface in a sustained periodic locomotion [Lumay et al., Soft Matter, 2013, 9,…
Recently, we proposed a self-propelled particle model with competing alignment interactions: nearby particles tend to align their velocities whereas they anti-align their direction of motion with particles which are further away [R.…
Efficient point-to-point navigation in the presence of a background flow field is important for robotic applications such as ocean surveying. In such applications, robots may only have knowledge of their immediate surroundings or be faced…
Coordinated movement and self-organisation of active self-driven agents is common in nature and is seen across different scales, from herds of animals to collective motion in bacteria. Often, these systems are heterogeneous in composition,…
We experimentally and theoretically investigate the collective behavior of three colloidal particles that are driven by a constant force along a toroidal trap. Due to hydrodynamic interactions, a characteristic limit cycle is observed. When…
Animal locomotion is often subject to constraints arising from anatomical/physiological asymmetries. We use the nematode C.~elegans as a minimal model system to ask whether such constraints might shape locomotion patterns optimized during…
When a population inhabits an inhomogeneous environment, the fitness value of traits can vary with the position in the environment. Gene flow caused by random mating can nevertheless prevent that a sexually reproducing population splits…