A circle swimmer at low Reynolds number
Abstract
Swimming in circles occurs in a variety of situations at low Reynolds number. Here we propose a simple model for a swimmer that undergoes circular motion, generalising the model of a linear swimmer proposed by Najafi and Golestanian (Phys. Rev. E 69, 062901 (2004)). Our model consists of three solid spheres arranged in a triangular configuration, joined by two links of time-dependent length. For small strokes, we discuss the motion of the swimmer as a function of the separation angle between its links. We find that swimmers describe either clockwise or anticlockwise circular motion depending on the tilting angle in a non-trivial manner. The symmetry of the swimmer leads to a quadrupolar decay of the far flow field. We discuss the potential extensions and experimental realisation of our model.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1207.3181,
title = {A circle swimmer at low Reynolds number},
author = {Rodrigo Ledesma-Aguilar and Hartmut Loewen and Julia M. Yeomans},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1207.3181},
year = {2012}
}
Comments
9 pages, 9 Figures