Related papers: Microswimming in viscoelastic fluids
The emergent fluctuating hydrodynamics of a viscoelastic fluid modeled by the multiparticle collision dynamics (MPC) approach is studied. The fluid is composed of flexible, Gaussian phantom polymers, which interact by local…
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…
Active flexible filaments form the classical continuum framework for modelling the locomotion of spermatozoa and algae driven by the periodic oscillation of flagella. This framework also applies to the locomotion of various artificial…
Interactions between swimming cells and surfaces are essential to many microbiological processes, from bacterial biofilm formation to human fertilization. However, in spite of their fundamental importance, relatively little is known about…
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…
The swimming behavior of bacteria and other microorganisms is sensitive to the physical properties of the fluid in which they swim. Mucus, biofilms, and artificial liquid-crystalline solutions are all examples of fluids with some degree of…
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…
Both natural and artificial small-scale swimmers may often self-propel in environments subject to complex geometrical constraints. While most past theoretical work on low-Reynolds number locomotion addressed idealised geometrical…
We study the stochastic force dynamics of a model microswimmer (Chlamydomonas reinhardtii), using a combined experimental, theoretical, and numerical approach. While swimming dynamics have been extensively studied using hydrodynamic…
Biofilms are spatially organized microorganism colonies embedded in a self-produced matrix, conferring to the microbial community resistance to environmental stresses. Motile bacteria have been observed swimming in the matrix of pathogenic…
Swimming eukaryotic microorganisms such as spermatozoa, algae and ciliates self-propel in viscous fluids using travelling wave-like deformations of slender appendages called flagella. Waves are predominant because Purcell's scallop theorem…
The acoustofluidic method holds great promise for manipulating microorganisms. When exposed to the steady vortex structures of acoustic streaming flow, these microorganisms exhibit intriguing dynamic behaviors, such as hydrodynamic trapping…
An approximation to the added mass matrix of an assembly of spheres is constructed on the basis of potential flow theory for situations where one sphere is much larger than the others. In the approximation the flow potential near a small…
Interactions between microorganisms and solid boundaries play an important role in biological processes, like egg fertilisation, biofilm formation and soil colonisation, where microswimmers move within a structured environment. Despite…
The emerging field of self-driven active particles in fluid environments has recently created significant interest in the biophysics and bioengineering communities owing to their promising future biomedical and technological applications.…
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…
Swimming is ubiquitous in nature and crucial for the survival of a wide range of organisms. The physics of swimming at the viscosity-dominated microscale and inertia-dominated macroscale is well studied. However, in between lies a…
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…
The accumulation of swimming bacteria near surfaces may lead to biological processes such as biofilm formation and wound infection. Previous experimental observations of Vibrio alginolyticus showed an interesting correlation between the…
One approach to quantifying biological diversity consists of characterizing the statistical distribution of specific properties of a taxonomic group or habitat. Microorganisms living in fluid environments, and for whom motility is key,…