Stirring by swimmers in confined microenvironments

DOI10.1088/1742-5468/2014/04/P04030zbMATH Open1456.76169arXiv1403.2619OpenAlexW3099886563WikidataQ59675446 ScholiaQ59675446MaRDI QIDQ3301937FDOQ3301937

J. M. Yeomans, Dmitri O. Pushkin

Publication date: 11 August 2020

Published in: Journal of Statistical Mechanics: Theory and Experiment (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: We consider the tracer diffusion $D_{rr}$ that arises from the run-and-tumble motion of low Reynolds number swimmers, such as bacteria. In unbounded dilute suspensions, where the dipole swimmers move in uncorrelated runs of length $lambda$, an exact solution showed that $D_{rr}$ is independent of $lambda$. Here we verify this result in numerical simulations for a particular model swimmer, the spherical squirmer. We also note that in confined microenvironments, such as microscopic droplets, microfluidic devices and bacterial microzones in marine ecosystems, the size of the system can be comparable to $lambda$. We show that this effect alone reduces the value of $D_{rr}$ in comparison to its bulk value, and predict a scaling form for its relative decrease.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/1403.2619

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Physiological flow (92C35) Biopropulsion in water and in air (76Z10)

Cites Work

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Cited In (6)

• Passively parallel regularized stokeslets
• Stirring by swimming bodies
• Collective motion in a suspension of micro-swimmers that run-and-tumble and~rotary~diffuse
• Enhanced velocity fluctuations in interacting swimmer suspensions
• Hydrodynamics of micro-swimmers in films
• Stochastic dynamics of active swimmers in linear flows

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