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We study propulsion arising from microscopic colloidal rotors dynamically assembled and driven in a viscous fluid upon application of an elliptically polarized rotating magnetic field. Close to a confining plate, the motion of this…
Collections of simple, self-propelled colloidal particles exhibit complex, emergent dynamical behavior, with promising applications in microrobotics. When confined within a deformable vesicle, self-propelled rods cluster and align,…
Exploiting the full potential of MBs for applications requires a good understanding of their complex dynamics. Improved understanding of MB oscillations can lead to further enhancement in optimizing their efficacy in many applications and…
The collective behavior of active semiflexible filaments is studied with a model of tangentially driven self-propelled worm-like chains. The combination of excluded-volume interactions and self-propulsion leads to several distinct dynamic…
Microorganisms ofter move in confined, disordered environments, where hydrodynamic couplings can modify their transport behavior. Using extensive finite-element simulations, we investigate the dynamics of microswimmers -- modeled as…
We derive from first principles a three-dimensional theory of self-propelled particle swarming in a viscous fluid environment. Our model predicts emergent collective behavior that depends critically on fluid opacity, mechanism of…
We investigate the cooperative dynamics of an ensemble of N microtubules growing against an elastic barrier. Microtubules undergo so-called catastrophes, which are abrupt stochastic transitions from a growing to a shrinking state, and…
Collective behavior is commonly attributed to direct interactions among system components. Using a minimal stochastic model, we show that higher-order collective structure can instead emerge from shared stochastic environments, even in the…
Systems of motile microorganisms exhibit a multitude of collective phenomena, including motility-induced phase separation and turbulence. Sensing of the environment and adaptation of movement plays an essential role in the emergent…
Crowd movements are observed among different species and on different scales, from insects to mammals, as well as in non-cognitive systems, such as motile cells. When forced to escape through a narrow opening, most terrestrial animals…
Unlike most human-engineered systems, many biological systems rely on emergent behaviors from low-level interactions, enabling greater diversity and superior adaptation to complex, dynamic environments. This study explores emergent…
The transition from single-cell to multicellular behavior is important in early development but rarely studied. The starvation-induced aggregation of the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum into a multicellular slug is known to result…
Many microswimmers are inherently chiral, and this chirality can introduce fascinating behaviors in a collection of microswimmers. The dynamics become even more intriguing when two types of microswimmers with distinct chirality are mixed.…
We run numerical simulations of strongly confined suspensions of model spherical swimmers called "squirmers". Because of the confinement, the Stokeslet dipoles generated by the particles are quickly screened and the far-field flow is…
Active agents - like phoretic particles, bacteria, sperm, and cytoskeletal filaments in motility assays - show a large variety of motility-induced collective behaviors, such as aggregation, clustering and phase separation. The behavior of…
How systems are endowed with migration capacity is a fascinating question with implications ranging from the design of novel active systems to the control of microbial populations. Bacteria, which can be found in a variety of environments,…
In nature, active matter, such as worms or dogs, tend to spontaneously form a stable rotational cluster when they flock to the same food source on an unregulated and unconfined surface. {In this paper we present an $n$-node flexible active…
We develop the hydrodynamic theory of dry, polar ordered, active matter (``flocking") with autochemotaxis; i.e., self-propelled entities moving in the same direction, each emitting a substance which attracts the others (e.g., ants). We find…
Hydrodynamic interactions between swimming or flying organisms can lead to complex flows on the scale of the group. These emergent fluid dynamics are often more complex than a linear superposition of individual organism flows, especially at…
Swarm robotics is a promising approach for the coordination of large numbers of robots. While previous studies have shown that evolutionary robotics techniques can be applied to obtain robust and efficient self-organized behaviors for robot…