Related papers: Motility and rotation of multi-timescale microswim…
Cilia and flagella are actively bending slender organelles, performing functions such as motility, feeding and embryonic symmetry breaking. We review the mechanics of viscous-dominated microscale flow, including time-reversal symmetry, drag…
We study swimming of small spherical particles who regulate fluid flow on their surface by applying tangential squirming strokes. We derive translational and rotational velocities for any given stroke which is not restricted by axial…
We study the orientational and translational dynamics of spherical microswimmers trapped at fluid interfaces, in terms of the force dipole and source dipole components of their flow field. Using numerical simulations and analytical…
A number of micro-scale biological flows are characterized by spatio-temporal chaos. These include dense suspensions of swimming bacteria, microtubule bundles driven by motor proteins, and dividing and migrating confluent layers of cells. A…
We define a model microswimmer with a variable cycle time, thus allowing the possibility of phase locking driven by hydrodynamic interactions between swimmers. We find that, for extensile or contractile swimmers, phase locking does occur,…
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…
Collective behaviour in suspensions of microswimmers is often dominated by the impact of long-ranged hydrodynamic interactions. These phenomena include active turbulence, where suspensions of pusher bacteria at sufficient densities exhibit…
The drag anisotropy of slender filaments is a critical physical property allowing swimming in low-Reynolds number flows, and without it linear translation is impossible. Here we show that, in contrast, net rotation can occur under isotropic…
In nature, metachronal coordination is an efficient strategy for fluid pumping and self-propulsion. Yet, mimetic systems for this type of organization are scarce. Recently, metachronal motion was observed in a bead-based magnetocapillary…
Microswimmer suspensions self-organize into complex spatio-temporal flow patterns, including vortex lattices and mesoscale turbulence. Here we explore the consequences for the motion of passive tracers, based on a continuum model for the…
Microswimmers (planktonic microorganisms or artificial active particles) immersed in a fluid interact with the ambient flow, altering their trajectories. In surface gravity waves, a common goal for microswimmers is vertical migration (e.g.,…
Deformability is a central feature of many types of microswimmers, e.g. for artificially generated self-propelled droplets. Here, we analyze deformable bead-spring microswimmers in an externally imposed solvent flow field as simple…
A self-propelled artificial microswimmer is often modeled as a ballistic Brownian particle moving with constant speed aligned along one of its axis, but changing direction due to random collisions with the environment. Similarly to thermal…
Shear-thinning is an important rheological property of many biological fluids, such as mucus, whereby the apparent viscosity of the fluid decreases with shear. Certain microscopic swimmers have been shown to progress more rapidly through…
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 presence of active forces in various biological and artificial systems may change how those systems behaves under forcing. We present a minimal model of a suspension of passive or active swimmers driven on the boundaries by…
Swimming of a sphere in a viscous incompressible fluid is studied on the basis of the Navier-Stokes equations for wave-type distortions of the spherical shape. At sizable values of the dimensionless scale number the mean swimming velocity…
Many biological microswimmers can modulate their swimming gait to achieve directional control of motility, especially when performing steering towards specific directional cues. This can be achieved without the need for obvious…
Self-propelled active particles exhibit delayed responses to environmental changes, modulating their propulsion speed through intrinsic sensing and feedback mechanisms. This adaptive behavior fundamentally determines their dynamics and…
Micron-sized self-propelled (active) particles can be considered as model systems for characterizing more complex biological organisms like swimming bacteria or motile cells. We produce asymmetric microswimmers by soft lithography and study…