Related papers: On the Physics of Size Selectivity
We propose a mechanism to control the formation of stable obstructions in two-dimensional micro-channels of variable sections taking advantage of the peculiar clustering property of active systems. Under the activation of the…
In thermal equilibrium, a colloidal particle between two parallel plates immersed in a fluid which partially wets both the particle and the plates, is attracted by the walls. However, if the particle moves parallel to the plates, a…
We study the diffusive behaviour of interacting active particles (self-propelled) with mass $m$ in an asymmetric channel. The particles are subjected to an external oscillatory force along the length of the channel. In this setup, particles…
Partitioning and transport of water and small solutes into and through nanopores is important to a variety of chemical and biological processes and applications. Here we study the partitioning of positive ions of increasing size into the…
Proliferation is a defining feature of life. Through growth, division, and death, living systems consume energy and inject mass, breaking conservation laws and driving collective phenomena from biofilm formation to embryonic development.…
We present a numerical study of the effect that fluid and particle inertia have on the motion of suspended spherical particles through a geometric constriction to understand analogous microfluidic settings, such as pinched flow…
We numerically examine the driven transport of an overdamped self-propelled particle through a two-dimensional array of circular obstacles. A detailed analysis of transport quantifiers (mobility and diffusivity) has been performed for two…
The reader surely knows what particles physics is about: finding building blocks of nature that appear elementary at a given time and study their interactions - so why in the world this essay? The problem is how to arrive at a fundamental…
We investigate the dynamics of very large particles freely advected in a turbulent von Karman flow. Contrary to other experiments for which the particle dynamics is generally studied near the geometrical center of the flow, we track the…
Lipid membranes, the barrier defining living cells and many of their sub-compartments, bind to a wide variety of nano- and micro-meter sized objects. In the presence of strong adhesive forces, membranes can strongly deform and wrap the…
Charged colloidal particles trapped at an air--water interface are well known to form an ordered crystal, stabilized by a long ranged repulsion, the details of this repulsion remain something of a mystery, but all experiments performed to…
Microchannels are well-known in microfluidic applications for the control and separation of microdroplets and cells. Often the objects in the flow experience inertial effects, resulting in dynamics that is a departure from the underlying…
Particles suspended in fluid flow through a closed duct can focus to specific stable locations in the duct cross-section due to hydrodynamic forces arising from the inertia of the disturbed fluid. Such particle focusing is exploited in…
Over the past few decades the experimental literature has consistently reported observations of attraction between like-charged colloidal particles and macromolecules in solution. Examples include nucleic acids and colloidal particles in…
We show that big bang cosmology implies a high degree of entanglement of particles in the universe. In fact, a typical particle is entangled with many particles far outside our horizon. However, the entanglement is spread nearly uniformly…
Metabolic substrates, such as oxygen and glucose, are rapidly delivered to the cell through filtration across microvessels walls. Modelling this important process is complicated by the coupling between flow and transport equations, which…
In a system of colloidal inclusions suspended in a thermalized bath of smaller particles, the bath engenders an attractive force between the inclusions, arising mainly from entropic origins, known as the depletion force. In the case of…
Despite their importance in many biological, ecological and physical processes, microorganismal fluid flows under tight confinement have not been investigated experimentally. Strong screening of Stokelets in this geometry suggests that the…
We investigate the motion of suspended particles past a single line of equally spaced cylindrical posts that is slanted with respect to the driving force. We show that such a one-dimensional array of posts can fractionate particles…
Disks of two sizes are confined to a long and narrow channel. The axis and the plane of the channel are horizontal. The channel is closed off by pistons that freeze jammed microstates out of loose disk configurations, agitated randomly at…