Emergent three-dimensional dynamics of rapidly spinning, self-propelled chiral particles in shear flow #

Mohit Dalwadi, Clément Moreau, Eamonn Gaffney, Benjamin Walker, Kenta Ishimoto

10:30 Wednesday in 4Q56.

Part of the Asymptotics in active matter session.

Abstract #

How does the rapid short-scale motion of microswimmers affect their overall motion in shear flow? In this talk, I discuss some recent work on answering this fluid mechanics problem for 3D rapidly spinning chiral swimmers, the results of which include a surprising link back to the classic Jeffery’s orbits for inert spheroids, first explored by Jeffery in the 1920s.

I will present an approachable version of the required analysis, including a technical method of multiple scales for systems. I will show that the short-scale rapid spinning behaviour exhibited by many microswimmers can have a significant effect on longer-scale trajectories, despite the common neglect of this spinning in mathematical models.