Related papers: Pushmepullyou: An efficient micro-swimmer
We consider a swimmer consisting of a collinear assembly of three spheres connected by two slender rods. This swimmer can propel itself forward by varying the lengths of the rods in a way that is not invariant under time reversal. Although…
We propose a combined analytical-numerical strategy to predict the dynamics and trajectory of a microswimmer next to a curved spherical obstacle. The microswimmer is actuated by a slip velocity on its surface and a uniformly valid solution…
Many microorganisms find themselves immersed in fluids displaying non-Newtonian rheological properties such as viscoelasticity and shear-thinning viscosity. The effects of viscoelasticity on swimming at low Reynolds numbers have already…
In this note, we study the effect of viscosity gradients on the energy dissipated by the motion of microswimmers and the associated efficiency of that motion. Using spheroidal squirmer model swimmers in weak linearly varying viscosity…
Many biological microswimmers locomote by periodically beating the densely-packed cilia on their cell surface in a wave-like fashion. While the swimming mechanisms of ciliated microswimmers have been extensively studied both from the…
We address the problem of controlling a dynamical system governing the motion of a 3D weighted shape changing body swimming in a perfect fluid. The rigid displacement of the swimmer results from the exchange of momentum between prescribed…
The spatiotemporal dynamics in systems of active self-propelled particles is controlled by the propulsion mechanism in combination with various direct interactions, such as steric repulsion, hydrodynamics, and chemical fields. Yet, these…
It is shown that low Reynolds number fluid flows can cause suspended particles to respond as though they were in an equilibrium system with an effective potential. This general result follows naturally from the fact that different methods…
Transport of material across liquid interfaces is ubiquitous for living cells and is also a crucial step in drug delivery and in many industrial processes. The fluids that are present on either side of the interfaces will usually have…
One approach to quantifying biological diversity consists of characterizing the statistical distribution of specific properties of a taxonomic group or habitat. Microorganisms living in fluid environments, and for whom motility is key,…
When swimming in close proximity, some microorganisms such as spermatozoa synchronize their flagella. Previous work on swimming sheets showed that such synchronization requires a geometrical asymmetry in the flagellar waveforms. Here we…
Many biological fluids are composed of suspended polymers immersed in a viscous fluid. A prime example is mucus, where the polymers are also known to form a network. While the presence of this microstructure is linked with an overall…
Depending on multiple parameters, soft robots can exhibit different modes of locomotion that are difficult to model numerically. As a result, improving their performance is complex, especially in small-scale systems characterized by low…
Motivated by recent advances in vesicle engineering, we consider theoretically the locomotion of shape-changing bilayer vesicles at low Reynolds number. By modulating their volume and membrane composition, the vesicles can be made to change…
A minimal design for a molecular swimmer is proposed that is a based on a mechanochemical propulsion mechanism. Conformational changes are induced by electrostatic actuation when specific parts of the molecule temporarily acquire net…
Recent experiments and numerical simulations have shown that certain types of microorganisms "reflect" off of a flat surface at a critical angle of departure, independent of the angle of incidence. The nature of the reflection may be active…
Microswimmers often use chirality to generate translational movement from rotation motion, exhibiting distinct behaviors in complex fluids compared to simple Newtonian fluids. However, the underlying mechanism remains incompletely…
Many microorganisms and artificial microswimmers use helical appendages in order to generate locomotion. Though often rotated so as to produce thrust, some species of bacteria such Spiroplasma, Rhodobacter sphaeroides and Spirochetes induce…
The experiments of Leptos et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 198103 (2009)] show that the displacements of small particles affected by swimming microorganisms achieve a non-Gaussian distribution, which nevertheless scales diffusively -- the…
We investigate the low Reynolds number hydrodynamics of a spherical swimmer with a predominantly hydrophobic surface, except for a hydrophilic active patch. This active patch covers a portion of the surface and exhibits chiral activity that…