Hydrodynamic Instabilities Provide A Generic Route To Spontaneous Biomimetic Oscillations In Chemomechanically Active Filaments

Abstract

Non-equilibrium processes which convert chemical energy into mechanical motion enable the motility of organisms. Bundles of inextensible filaments driven by energy transduction of molecular motors form essential components of micron-scale motility engines like cilia and flagella. The mimicry of cilia-like motion in recent experiments on synthetic active filaments supports the idea that generic physical mechanisms may be sufficient to generate such motion. Here we show, theoretically, that the competition between the destabilising effect of hydrodynamic interactions induced by force-free and torque-free chemomechanically active flows, and the stabilising effect of nonlinear elasticity, provides a generic route to spontaneous oscillations in active filaments. These oscillations, reminiscent of prokaryotic and eukaryotic flagellar motion, are obtained without having to invoke structural complexity or biochemical regulation. This minimality implies that biomimetic oscillations, previously observed only in complex bundles of active filaments, can be replicated in simple chains of generic chemomechanically active beads.

10 (6+4) pages, 8 (5+3) figures; contains supplemental text; movies at https://sites.google.com/site/somdebghose/gallery; published in Nature Scientific Reports

References in corpus (3)

• The hydrodynamics of swimming microorganisms
• Spontaneous motion in hierarchically assembled active matter
• Direct measurement of the flow field around swimming microorganisms

Cited by in corpus (17)

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• Colloidal transport by active filaments
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• Internal friction controls active ciliary oscillations near the instability threshold
• Morphological and dynamical properties of semiflexible filaments driven by molecular motors
• The Phase Synchronized State of Oriented Active Fluids
• Beating to rotational transition of a clamped active ribbon-like filament
• Active hydrodynamics of synchronization and ordering in moving oscillators
• Characteristic features of self-avoiding active Brownian polymers under linear shear flow
• Active XY model on a substrate: Density fluctuations and phase ordering
• Control of active polymeric filaments by chemically-powered nanomotors
• Active chain spirograph: Dynamic patterns formed in extensible chains due to follower activity
• Instability and self-propulsion of flexible autophoretic filaments