Related papers: Stabilizing by steering: Enhancing bacterial motil…
In natural environments, solid surfaces present both opportunities and challenges for bacteria. On one hand, they serve as platforms for biofilm formation, crucial for bacterial colonization and resilience in harsh conditions. On the other…
The run-and-tumble dynamics of bacteria, as exhibited by \textit{E. coli}, offers a simple experimental realization of non-Brownian, yet diffusive, particles. Here we present some analytic and numerical results for models of the ideal…
Understanding how colloids move in crowded environments is key for gaining control over their transport in applications such as drug delivery, filtration, contaminant/microplastic remediation and agriculture. The classical models of colloid…
It has recently been reported that bacteria, such as E.coli and P. putida, perform distinct modes of motion when placed in porous media as compared to dilute regions or free space. This has led us to suggest an efficient strategy for active…
Navigation of microorganisms is controlled by internal processes ultimately sensitive to mechanical or chemical signaling encountered along the path. In many natural environments, such as porous soils or physiological ducts, motile species…
Electrolytic diffusiophoresis refers to directional migration of colloids due to interfacial forces that develop in response to local electrolytic concentration ($c$) gradients. This physicochemical transport provides an efficient…
Efficient mixing of colloids, particles or molecules is a central issue in many processes. It results from the complex interplay between flow deformations and molecular diffusion, which is generally assumed to control the homogenization…
Predicting and controlling the transport of colloids in porous media is essential for applications ranging from contaminant remediation to drug delivery. In these complex environments, solute gradients are ubiquitous and could drive…
Dense suspensions of swimming bacteria are known to exhibit collective behaviour arising from the interplay of steric and hydrodynamic interactions. Unconfined suspensions exhibit transient, recurring vortices and jets, whereas those…
Bacteria such as Escherichia coli (E. coli) exhibit biased motion if kept in a spatially non-uniform chemical environment. Here, we bring out unique time-dependent characteristics of bacterial chemotaxis, in response to a diffusing spatial…
During the past century, biologists and mathematicians investigated two mechanisms underlying bacteria motion: the run phase during which bacteria move in straight lines and the tumble phase in which they change their orientation. When…
Many swimming bacteria naturally inhabit confined environments, yet how confinement influences their swimming behaviors remains unclear. Here, we combine experiments, continuum modeling and particle-based simulations to investigate…
Bacterial colonies are a well-known example of living active matter, exhibiting collective behaviors such as nematic alignment and collective motion that play an important role in the spread of microbial infections. While the underlying…
Gliding is a means of locomotion on rigid substrates utilized by a number of bacteria includingmyxobacteria and cyanobacteria. One of the hypotheses advanced to explain this motility mechanism hinges on the role played by the slime…
We present a mathematical model of lophotrichous bacteria, motivated by Pseudomonas putida, which swim through fluid by rotating a cluster of multiple flagella extended from near one pole of the cell body. Although the flagella rotate…
Motility is a fundamental survival strategy of bacteria to navigate porous environments. Swimming cells thrive in quiescent wetlands and sediments at the bottom of the marine water column, where they mediate many essential biogeochemical…
How motile bacteria move near a surface is a problem of fundamental biophysical interest and is key to the emergence of several phenomena of biological, ecological and medical relevance, including biofilm formation. Solid boundaries can…
Run-and-tumble is a common but vital strategy that bacteria employ to explore environment suffused with boundaries, as well as to escape from entrapment. In this study we reveal how this strategy and the resulting dynamical behavior can be…
Solute-surface interactions have garnered considerable interest in recent years as a novel control mechanism for driving unique fluid dynamics and particle transport with potential applications in fields such as biomedicine, the development…
In an externally imposed electrolyte (salt) concentration gradient, charged colloids drift at speeds of order one micrometre per second. This phenomenon is known as diffusiophoresis. In systems with multiple salts and 'crossed' salt…