Mechanisms of carrier transport induced by a microswimmer bath

Abstract

Recently, it was found that a wedgelike microparticle (referred to as "carrier") which is only allowed to translate but not to rotate exhibits a directed translational motion along the wedge cusp if it is exposed to a bath of microswimmers. Here we model this effect in detail by resolving the microswimmers explicitly using interaction models with different degrees of mutual alignment. Using computer simulations we study the impact of these interactions on the transport efficiency of V-shaped carrier. We show that the transport mechanisms itself strongly depends on the degree of alignment embodied in the modelling of the individual swimmer dynamics. For weak alignment, optimal carrier transport occurs in the turbulent microswimmer state and is induced by swirl depletion inside the carrier. For strong aligning interactions, optimal transport occurs already in the dilute regime and is mediated by a polar cloud of swimmers in the carrier wake pushing the wedge-particle forward. We also demonstrate that the optimal shape of the carrier leading to maximal transport speed depends on the kind of interaction model used.

7 pages, 7 figures

References in corpus (25)

• Novel type of phase transition in a system of self-driven particles
• Self-motile colloidal particles: from directed propulsion to random walk
• Interaction Ruling Animal Collective Behaviour Depends on Topological rather than Metric Distance: Evidence from a Field Study
• Emergence of macroscopic directed motion in populations of motile colloids
• Meso-scale turbulence in living fluids
• Fluid dynamics and noise in bacterial cell-cell and cell-surface scattering
• Diffusive transport without detailed balance in motile bacteria: Does microbiology need statistical physics?
• Fluid Flows Created by Swimming Bacteria Drive Self-Organization in Confined Suspensions
• Living Liquid Crystals
• Swarming and swirling in self-propelled polar granular rods
• Sedimentation, trapping, and rectification of dilute bacteria
• Gravitaxis of asymmetric self-propelled colloidal particles
• Self-Starting Micromotors in a Bacterial Bath
• Dynamics of Self-Propelled Particles Under Strong Confinement
• Rectification of Swimming Bacteria and Self Driven Particle Systems by Arrays of Asymmetric Barriers
• Transport powered by bacterial turbulence
• Swarm behavior of self-propelled rods and swimming flagella
• Unusual swelling of a polymer in a bacterial bath
• Active phase and amplitude fluctuations of flagellar beating
• Trafficlike collective movement of ants on trails: absence of jammed phase
• Geometrical guidance and trapping transition of human sperm cells
• Curvature Induced Activation of a Passive Tracer in an Active Bath
• Can the self-propulsion of anisotropic microswimmers be described by using forces and torques?
• Motility-sorting of self-propelled particles in micro-channels
• Self propelled particle transport in regular arrays of rigid asymmetric obstacles

Cited by in corpus (6)

• An active approach to colloidal self-assembly
• How does a flexible chain of active particles swell?
• Motion of two micro-wedges in a turbulent bacterial bath
• Multi-species dynamical density functional theory for microswimmers: derivation, orientational ordering, trapping potentials, and shear cells
• Activity-assisted self-assembly of colloidal particles
• Stable and unstable flow regimes for active fluids in the periodic setting