Related papers: Coordinated motion of active filaments on spherica…
This letter studies a distributed collision avoidance control problem for a group of rigid bodies on a sphere. A rigid body network, consisting of multiple rigid bodies constrained to a spherical surface and an interconnection topology, is…
We present an experimental study of the statistical properties of millimeter-size spheres floating on the surface of a turbulent flow. The flow is generated in a layer of liquid metal by an electromagnetic forcing. By using two magnet…
To understand the relationship between the chirality of individual cells and that of tissues and organisms, we have developed a chiral polarized particle model to investigate the movement of cell populations on substrates. Our model…
We study the spontaneous motion, binary collisions, and collective dynamics of "polar disks", i.e. purpose-built particles which, when vibrated between two horizontal plates, move coherently along a direction strongly correlated to their…
Many bacteria use rotating helical flagellar filaments to swim. The filaments undergo polymorphic transformations in which the helical pitch and radius change abruptly. These transformations arise in response to mechanical loading, changes…
Carpets of beating cilia represent a paradigmatic example of self-organized synchronization of noisy biological oscillators, characterized by traveling waves of cilia phase. We present a multi-scale model of a cilia carpet, which comprises…
Suspensions of swimming micro-organisms provide examples of coordinated active dynamics. That has stimulated the study of a phenomenological theory combining synchronization and polar order in active matter. Here, we consider another…
The dynamics of spherical particles driven along an interface between two immiscible fluids is investigated asymptotically. Under the assumptions of a pinned three-phase contact line and very different viscosities of the two fluids, a…
Fluid-structure interactions between active and passive components are important for many biological systems to function. A particular example is chromatin in the cell nucleus, where ATP-powered processes drive coherent motions of the…
The mechanics of crawling cells on a substrate is investigated by using a minimal model that satisfies the force-free condition. A cell is described by two subcellular elements connected by a linear actuator that changes the length of the…
Many swimming microorganisms, such as bacteria and sperm, use flexible flagella to move through viscoelastic media in their natural environments. In this paper we address the effects a viscoelastic fluid has on the motion and beating…
Topological defects in active liquid crystals can be confined by introducing gradients of activity. Here, we examine the dynamical behavior of two defects confined by a sharp gradient of activity that separates an active circular region and…
In a previous paper, we examined a class of possible conformations for helically patterned filaments in contact with a bonding surface. In particular, we investigated geometries where contact between the pattern and the surface was improved…
When tiny soft ferromagnetic particles are placed along a liquid interface and exposed to a vertical magnetic field, the balance between capillary attraction and magnetic repulsion leads to self-organization into well-defined patterns.…
We present a multi-scale model to study the attachment of spherical particles with a rigid core, coated with binding ligands and in equilibrium with the surrounding, quiescent fluid medium. This class of fluid-immersed adhesion is…
We find that circular kinks form on the surface of granular material when the axis of rotation is tilted more than the angle of internal friction of the material. Radius of the kinks is measured as a function of the spinning speed and the…
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…
We show that hydrodynamic turbulent cloud simulations naturally produce large filaments made up of a network of smaller and coherent sub-filaments. Such simulations resemble observations of filaments and fibres in nearby molecular clouds.…
Slithering, crawling, slipping, gliding are various modes of limbless locomotion that have been mimicked for micro-manipulation of soft, slender and sessile objects. A lesser known mode is rolling which involves periodic, asymmetric and…
In some physical and biological swarms, agents effectively move and interact along curved surfaces. The associated constraints and symmetries can affect collective-motion patterns, but little is known about pattern stability in the presence…