Related papers: Reaching for the surface: Spheroidal microswimmers…
We use a three-bead-spring model to investigate the dynamics of bi-flagellate micro-swimmers near a surface. While the primary dynamics and scattering are governed by geometric-dependent direct contact, the fluid flows generated by the…
Microorganisms navigate through fluid, often confined by complex environments, to survive and sustain life. Inspired by this fact, we consider a model system and seek to understand the wall curvature driven dynamics of a squirmer, a…
We demonstrate with experiments and simulations how microscopic self-propelled particles navigate through environments presenting complex spatial features, which mimic the conditions inside cells, living organisms and future lab-on-a-chip…
Few simulations exist for microswimmers near deformable interfaces. Here, we present numerical simulations of the hydrodynamic flows associated with a single microswimmer embedded in a binary fluid mixture. The two fluids demix, separated…
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…
The self-propelled motion of microscopic bodies immersed in a fluid medium is studied using molecular dynamics simulation. The advantage of the atomistic approach is that the detailed level of description allows complete freedom in…
Hydrodynamic interactions are crucial for determining the cooperative behavior of microswimmers at low Reynolds numbers. Here we provide a comprehensive analysis of the scaling and strength of the interactions in the case of a pair of…
Surface interactions provide a class of mechanisms which can be employed for propulsion of micro- and nanometer sized particles. We investigate the related efficiency of externally and self-propelled swimmers. A general scaling relation is…
Microswimmers in nature often experience spatial gradients of viscosity. In this work we develop theoretical results for the dynamics of active particles, biological or otherwise, swimming through viscosity gradients. We model the active…
We study the orientational and translational dynamics of spherical microswimmers trapped at fluid interfaces, in terms of the force dipole and source dipole components of their flow field. Using numerical simulations and analytical…
We study the coupled hydrodynamics between a motile slender microswimmer and a deformable interface that separates two Newtonian fluid regions. From the disturbance field generated by the swimming motion, we quantitatively characterize the…
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,…
The hydrodynamic interactions of a suspension of self-propelled particles are studied using a direct numerical simulation method which simultaneously solves for the host fluid and the swimming particles. A modified version of the "Smoothed…
Many biological microswimmers locomote by periodically beating the densely-packed cilia on their cell surface in a wave-like fashion. While the swimming mechanisms of ciliated microswimmers have been extensively studied both from the…
An optimal microswimmer with a given geometry has a surface velocity profile that minimizes energy dissipation for a given swimming speed. An axisymmetric swimmer can be puller-, pusher-, or neutral-type depending on the sign of the…
This article presents a computational approach for determining the optimal slip velocities on any given shape of an axisymmetric micro-swimmer suspended in a viscous fluid. The objective is to minimize the power loss to maintain a target…
The behavior of fluid interfaces far from equilibrium plays central roles in nature and in industry. Active swimmers trapped at interfaces can alter transport at fluid boundaries with far reaching implications. Swimmers can become trapped…
Simple models are used throughout the physical sciences as a means of developing intuition, capturing phenomenology, and qualitatively reproducing observations. In studies of microswimming, simple force-dipole models are commonplace,…
The presence of obstacles is intuitively expected to hinder the diffusive transport of micro-swimmers. However, for chiral micro-swimmers, a low density of obstacles near a surface can enhance their diffusive behavior, due to the…
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…