Regensburg 2010 – scientific programme

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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 7: Posters: Biological Machines, Motor Proteins

BP 7.9: Poster

Monday, March 22, 2010, 17:15–20:00, Poster B1

Synchronisation in a Chain of Rowers with Hydrodynamic Interaction — •Christopher Wollin and Holger Stark — TU-Berlin, Sekr. EW 7-1, Inst. f. Theo. Physik, Hardenbergstr. 36, D-10623 BERLIN-Charlottenburg

The ciliary beat, for example of paramcium and opalina, is coordinated such that metachronal waves move along the cell surface. There is strong evidence that hydrodynamic interactions cause these waves.

In order to study the origin of metachronal waves, we investigate the collective dynamics of a chain of periodically moving beads, called rowers, which are to abstract the ciliary beat. The beads move on line segments situated close to an infinitely extended planar wall. They are driven by a force that possesses a quadratic potential and that is reversed when the bead reaches a given amplitude in each direction. We assume the beads to be pointlike and describe their hydrodynamic interaction by the Blake tensor. Varying the distance of the segments from the wall, we can tune the range of the hydrodynamic interaction.

We find that two rowers synchronize in phase or in anti-phase depending on the respective negative or positive curvature of the driving quadratic potential. Chains with more rowers display a wealth of self-organized pattern formation. In particular, in the case where two rowers would synchronize in phase, we observe stable metachronal waves when the chain is loacted close to the wall, i.e., when the hydrodynamic interaction predominantly acts between nearest neighbours. Moving the chain away from the wall, the metachronal waves disappear and only transient structures form.