Dresden 2014 – scientific programme

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DY: Fachverband Dynamik und Statistische Physik

DY 1: Tutorial: Non-Equilibrium Dynamics

DY 1.3: Tutorial

Sunday, March 30, 2014, 17:30–18:15, HSZ 105

Active motion at low Reynolds number — •Holger Stark — Institut für Theoretische Physik, TU Berlin, D-10623 Berlin, Germany

Starlings over Rome form dynamic swarms, fishes in water move collectively in fish schools. Zooming from the macroscopic into the microscopic world, bacteria also show intricate collective behavior.

However, on the micron scale swimming in aqueous environment requires different strategies than in the macroscopic world since at low Reynolds number drifting by inertia is not possible. Biological swimmers like bacteria and artificial microswimmers constantly consume energy to move forward. They are always in nonequilibrium.

The talk demonstrates some swimming strategies from nature but also of man-made microswimmers. It then illustrates at a few examples, how active motion reveals itself already on the single-swimmer level but also in the collective properties when many swimmers interact.