Chaos and mixing in self-propelled droplets

Abstract

We consider self-propelled droplets which are driven by internal flow. Tracer particles, which are advected by the flow, in general follow chaotic trajectories, even though the motion of the autonomous swimmer is completely regular. The flow is mixing, and for Péclet and Batchelor numbers, which are realized e.g. in eucaryotic cells, advective mixing can substantially accelerate and even dominate transport by diffusion.

References in corpus (3)

• Growth and Division of Active Droplets: A Model for Protocells
• A physical perspective on cytoplasmic streaming (invited)
• From active stresses and forces to self propulsion of droplets

Cited by in corpus (1)

• Mutual information as a measure of mixing efficiency in viscous fluids