Related papers: Dynamics of Purcell-type microswimmers with active…
Micro-swimmer locomotion in heterogeneous media is increasingly relevant in biological physics due to the prevalence of microorganisms in complex environments. A model for such porous media is the Brinkman fluid which accounts for a sparse…
As technological advances allow us to fabricate smaller autonomous self-propelled devices, it is clear that at some point directed propulsion could not come from pre-specified deterministic periodic deformation of the swimmer's body and we…
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…
We investigate theoretically the collective dynamics of a suspension of low Reynolds number swimmers that are confined to two dimensions by a thin fluid film. Our model swimmer is characterized by internal degrees of freedom which locally…
Viscoelasticity governs the locomotion strategies of deformable microorganisms, rendering it a fundamental mechanical property of microbial motility and an integral component in the design of envisioned microbots. Recent studies have shown…
A model of an autonomous three-sphere microswimmer is proposed by implementing a coupling effect between the two natural lengths of an elastic microswimmer. Such a coupling mechanism is motivated by the previous models for synchronization…
Among several models for microswimmers, the three-sphere microswimmer proposed by Najafi and Golestanian captures the essential mechanism for the locomotion of a microswimmer in a viscous fluid. Owing to its simplicity and flexibility, the…
We investigate 3-dimensional flagellar swimming in a fluid with a sparse network of stationary obstacles or fibers. The Brinkman equation is used to model the average fluid flow where a flow-dependent term, including a resistance parameter…
A single flexible filament can be actuated to escape from the scallop theorem and generate net propulsion at low Reynolds number. In this work, we study the dynamics of a simple boundary-driven multi-filament swimmer, a two-arm clamshell…
Guiding active microswimmers by external fields to requested target locations is a promising strategy to realize complex transport on the microscale. To this end, one possibility consists of attaching the microswimmers to orientable passive…
We analyze a minimal model for a rigid spherical microswimmer and explore the consequences of its extended surface on the interplay between its self-propulsion and flow properties. The model is the first order representation of…
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,…
We investigate the hydrodynamic interactions between microorganisms swimming at low Reynolds number. By considering simple model swimmers, and combining analytic and numerical approaches, we investigate the time-averaged flow field around a…
Many microswimmers are able to swim through viscous fluids by employing periodic non-reciprocal deformations of their appendages. Here we use a simple microswimmer model inspired by swimming biflagellates which consists of a spherical cell…
Swimming cells often have to self-propel through fluids displaying non-Newtonian rheology. While past theoretical work seems to indicate that stresses arising from complex fluids should systematically hinder low-Reynolds number locomotion,…
In Stokes flow, Purcell's scallop theorem forbids objects with time-reversible (reciprocal) swimming strokes from moving. In the presence of inertia, this restriction is eased and reciprocally deforming bodies can swim. A number of recent…
We study the fluid drift due to a time-dependent dumbbell model of a microswimmer. The model captures important aspects of real microswimmers such as a time-dependent flagellar motion and a no-slip body. The model consists of a rigid sphere…
We investigate a self-organized swimmer at low Reynolds numbers. The microscopic swimmer is composed of three spheres that are connected by two identical active linker arms. Each linker arm contains molecular motors and elastic elements and…
Microswimmers exhibit an intriguing, highly-dynamic collective motion with large-scale swirling and streaming patterns, denoted as active turbulence -- reminiscent of classical high-Reynolds-number hydrodynamic turbulence. Various…
We study different types of microswimmers moving in channels with varying cross section and thereby interacting hydrodynamically with the channel walls. Starting from the Smoluchowski equation for a dilute suspension, for which interactions…