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It is well known that the reversibility of Stokes flow makes it difficult for small microorganisms to swim. Inertial effects break this reversibility, allowing new mechanisms of propulsion and feeding. Therefore it is important to…
Many species of phytoplankton migrate vertically near the surface of the ocean, either in search of light or nutrients. These motile organisms are affected by ocean waves at the surface. We derive a set of wave-averaged equations to…
Many biological microorganisms and artificial microswimmers react to external cues of environmental gradients by changing their swimming directions. We study here the behavior of eukarytic flagellated microswimmers in linear viscosity…
We present a fluid dynamics video showing how capillary rafts sink. Small objects trapped at an interface are very common in Nature (insects walking on water, ant rafts, bubbles or pollen at the water-air interface, membranes...) and are…
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…
Many different robots have been designed and built to work under water. In many cases, researchers have chosen to use bio-inspired platforms. In most cases, the main goal of the fish inspired robots has been set to autonomously swim and…
We discuss the scaling laws for the flow generated in a viscous fluid by a wave propagating along a solid boundary. This has applications to the displacement of tiny objects on solids, under the effect of progressive surface waves and for…
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…
We report three stages for locomotion of a helical swimmer in yield stress fluids. In the first stage, the swimmer must overcome material's yield strain to generate rotational motion. However, exceeding the first threshold is not sufficient…
We study the motion of a microscopic swimmer composed of a semiflexible polymer anchored at the surface of a magnetic sphere using hydrodynamic simulations and scaling arguments. The swimmer is driven by a rotating magnetic field, and…
A superfluid flows without friction below a critical velocity, exhibiting zero drag force on impurities. Above this threshold, superfluidity breaks down, and the internal energy is redistributed into incoherent excitations such as vortices.…
In biological systems, microswimmers often propel themselves through complex media. However, many aspects of swimming mechanisms in non-Newtonian fluids remain unclear. This study considers the propulsion of two types of single spherical…
Recently, there is much interest in droplet condensation on soft or liquid/liquid-like substrates. Droplets can deform soft and liquid interfaces resulting in a wealth of phenomena not observed on hard, solid surfaces (e.g., increased…
Contrasting with its sluggish behavior on standard solids, water is extremely mobile on superhydrophobic materials, as shown for instance by the continuous acceleration of drops on tilted water-repellent leaves. For much longer substrates,…
Diversity and specialization of behavior in insects is unmatched. Insects hop, walk, run, jump, row, swim, glide and fly to propel themselves in a variety of environments. We have uncovered an unusual mode of propulsion of aerodynamic…
Swimming of microorganisms is studied from a viewpoint of extended objects (strings and membranes) swimming in the incompressible f luid of low Reynolds number. The flagellated motion is analyzed in two dimensional fluid, by using the…
Undulatory locomotion, as seen in the nematode \emph{Caenorhabditis elegans}, is a common swimming gait of organisms in the low Reynolds number regime, where viscous forces are dominant. While the nematode's motility is expected to be a…
In a fluid environment, flagellated microswimmers propel themselves by rotating their flagella. The morphology of these flagella significantly influences forward speed, swimming efficiency, and directional stability, which are critical for…
Ciliated microswimmers and flagellated bacteria alter their swimming trajectories to follow the direction of an applied electric field exhibiting electrotaxis. Both for matters of application and physical modelling, it is instructive to…
In this article, we are interested in studying locomotion strategies for a class of shape-changing bodies swimming in a fluid. This class consists of swimmers subject to a particular linear dynamics, which includes the two most investigated…