Related papers: Autonomous elastic microswimmer
To explore and react to their environment, living micro-swimmers have developed sophisticated strategies for locomotion - in particular, motility with multiple gaits. To understand the physical principles associated with such a behavioural…
Microswimmers, and among them aspirant microrobots, generally have to cope with flows where viscous forces are dominant, characterized by a low Reynolds number ($Re$). This implies constraints on the possible sequences of body motion, which…
We combine a general formulation of microswimmmer equations of motion with a numerical bead-shell model to calculate the hydrodynamic interactions with the fluid, from which the swimming speed, power and efficiency are extracted. From this…
Artificial microswimmers are a new technology with promising microfluidics and biomedical applications, such as directed cargo transport, microscale assembly, and targeted drug delivery. A fundamental barrier to realising this potential is…
Biological microswimmers such as bacteria and sperm cells often encounter complex biological fluid environments. Here we use the well-known squirmer microswimmer model to show the importance of the local fluid microstructure and…
Motivated by the observed coordination of nearby beating cilia, we use a scale model experiment to show that hydrodynamic interactions can cause synchronization between rotating paddles driven at constant torque in a very viscous fluid.…
Deformability is a central feature of many types of microswimmers, e.g. for artificially generated self-propelled droplets. Here, we analyze deformable bead-spring microswimmers in an externally imposed solvent flow field as simple…
The journey of mammalian spermatozoa in nature is well-known to be reliant on their individual motility. Often swimming in crowded microenvironments, the progress of any single swimmer is likely dependent on their interactions with other…
In this work we consider the following question: given a mechanical microswimming mechanism, does increased deformability of the swimmer body hinder or promote the motility of the swimmer? To answer this we study a microswimmer model…
Using numerical simulations, we characterized the behavior of an elastic membrane immersed in an active fluid. Our findings reveal a nontrivial folding and re-expansion of the membrane that is controlled by the interplay of its resistance…
The paper presents a two-phase hydrodynamic model for the numerical simulation of collective motion in a thin layer of active colloids containing spherical microswimmers. The model accounts for three fundamental mechanisms governing the…
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…
We discuss the directional motion of an elastic three-sphere micromachine in which the spheres are in equilibrium with independent heat baths having different temperatures. Even in the absence of prescribed motion of springs, such a…
The locomotion of microorganisms and spermatozoa in complex viscoelastic fluids is of critical importance in many biological processes such as fertilization, infection, and biofilm formation. Depending on their propulsion mechanisms,…
We investigate macroscopic behavior of a dynamical network consisting of a time-evolving wiring of interactions among a group of random walkers. We assume that each walker (agent) has an oscillator and show that depending upon the nature of…
We consider a suspension of active rigid particles (swimmers) in a steady Stokes flow, where particles are distributed according to a stationary ergodic random process, and we study its homogenization in the macroscopic limit. A key point…
This paper studies the influence of orienting external fields on pattern formation, particularly mesoscale turbulence, in microswimmer suspensions. To this end, we apply a hydrodynamic theory that can be derived from a microscopic…
Self-propulsion of cellular microswimmers generates flow signatures, commonly classified as pusher- and puller-type, which characterize hydrodynamic interactions with other cells or boundaries. Using experimentally measured beat patterns,…
In analogy to nanoscopic molecules that are composed of individual atoms, we consider an active "microswimmer molecule". It is built up from three individual magnetic colloidal microswimmers that are connected by harmonic springs and…
Some microorganisms, such as spermatozoa, synchronize their flagella when swimming in close proximity. Using a simplified model (two infinite, parallel, two-dimensional waving sheets), we show that phase-locking arises from hydrodynamics…