Characteristic spatial scale of vesicle pair interactions in a plane linear flow

Abstract

We report the experimental studies on interaction of two vesicles trapped in a microfluidic analog of four-roll mill, where a plane linear flow is realized. We found that the dynamics of a single vesicle is significantly altered by the presence of another vesicle at separation distances up to about 3.2 ÷3.7 times of effective radius of the vesicles. This is supported by direct measurements of a single vesicle back-reaction on the velocity field. Thus, the experiment provides the lower bound for the interaction scale of vesicles and so the corresponding upper bound for the volume fraction ϕ=0.08 ÷0.13 of non-interacting vesicle suspensions.

5 pages, 8 figures, PRE accepted for publication