Related papers: Microswimmers learning chemotaxis with genetic alg…
We numerically investigate the motion of active artificial microswimmers diffusing in a fuel concentration gradient. We observe that, in the steady state, their probability density accumulates in the low-concentration regions, whereas a…
We describe a method for programming the autonomous navigation of active colloidal particles in response to spatial gradients in a scalar stimulus. Functional behaviors such as positive or negative chemotaxis are encoded in the particle…
It has been shown that an anisotropic liquid crystalline (LC) environment can be used to guide the self-propulsion dynamics of dispersed microswimmers, such as bacteria. This type of composite system is named "living nematic" (LN). In the…
A three-dimensional hydrodynamical model for a micro random walker is combined with the idea of chemotactic signaling network of E. coli. Diffusion exponents, orientational correlation functions and their dependence on the geometrical and…
Inputs to signaling pathways can have complex statistics that depend on the environment and on the behavioral response to previous stimuli. Such behavioral feedback is particularly important in navigation. Successful navigation relies on…
Recent research has shown that motile cells can adapt their mode of propulsion to the mechanical properties of the environment in which they find themselves--crawling in some environments while swimming in others. The latter can involve…
Microswimmers (planktonic microorganisms or artificial active particles) immersed in a fluid interact with the ambient flow, altering their trajectories. In surface gravity waves, a common goal for microswimmers is vertical migration (e.g.,…
In chemotaxis, cells are modulating their migration patterns in response to concentration gradients of a guiding substance. Immune cells are believed to use such chemotactic sensing for remotely detecting and homing in on pathogens.…
Single-cell organisms and various cell types use a range of motility modes when following a chemical gradient, but it is unclear which mode is best suited for different gradients. Here, we model directional decision-making in chemotactic…
As motivated by studies of cellular motility driven by spatiotemporal chemotactic gradients in microdevices, we develop a framework for constructing approximate analytical solutions for the location, speed and cellular densities for cell…
Many bacteria live in natural and clinical environments with abundant macromolecular polymers. Macromolecular fluids commonly display viscoelasticity and non-Newtonian rheological behavior; it is unclear how these complex-fluid properties…
Recent research has shown that motile cells can adapt their mode of propulsion depending on the environment in which they find themselves. One mode is swimming by blebbing or other shape changes, and in this paper we analyze a class of…
Free-living nematode Caenorhabditis elegans is a powerful genetic model, essential for investigations ranging from behavior to neuroscience to aging, and locomotion is a key observable used in these studies. However, despite the fact that…
Biological microswimmers are known to navigate upstream of an external flow (positive rheotaxis) in trajectories ranging from linear, spiral to oscillatory. Such rheotaxis stems from the interplay between the motion and complex shapes of…
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…
Living microorganisms have evolved dedicated sensory machinery to detect environmental perturbations, processing these signals through biochemical networks to guide behavior. Replicating such capabilities in synthetic active matter remains…
We study how simple eukaryotic organisms make decisions in response to competing stimuli in the context of phototaxis by the unicellular alga $Chlamydomonas~reinhardtii$. While negatively phototactic cells swim directly away from a…
We study the energetic efficiency of navigating microswimmers by explicitly taking into account the geometry of their body. We show that, as their shape transitions from prolate to oblate, non-steering microswimmers rotated by flow…
Microorganisms often encounter anisotropy, for example in mucus and biofilms. We study how anisotropy and elasticity of the ambient fluid affects the speed of a swimming microorganism with a prescribed stroke. Motivated by recent…
Microswimming cells and robots exhibit diverse behaviours due to both their swimming and their environment. One of the core environmental features impacting inertialess swimming is background flows. While the influence of select flows,…