Hydrodynamics of a Micro-Hunter: Chemotactic Scenario

Abstract

Inspired by bacterial chemotaxis we propose a hydrodynamic molecular scale hunter that can swim and find its target. The system is essentially a stochastic low Reynolds swimmer with ability to move in two dimensional space and sense the local value of the chemical concentration emitted by a target. We show that by adjusting the geometrical and dynamical variables of the swimmer we can always achieve a swimmer that can navigate and search for the region with higher concentration of a chemical emitted from a source. The system discussed here can also be considered as a theoretical framework for describing the bacterial chemotaxis.

Submitted (2010)

References in corpus (5)

• The hydrodynamics of swimming microorganisms
• Propulsion of a molecular machine by asymmetric distribution of reaction--products
• A basic swimmer at low Reynolds number
• A simple self-organized swimmer driven by molecular motors
• Two-sphere low Reynold's propeller