Berlin 2024 – scientific programme

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DY: Fachverband Dynamik und Statistische Physik

DY 32: Poster: Active Matter, Soft Matter, Fluids

DY 32.20: Poster

Wednesday, March 20, 2024, 15:00–18:00, Poster C

Hydrodynamic Interaction of a Microswimmer with a Deformable Membrane — •Sagnik Garai, Akhil Varma, and Christina Kurzthaler — Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems, Dresden

We study the dynamics of microswimmers, such as bacteria, when they encounter elastic surfaces, like biological membranes, in their environment. In an unbounded domain, the far-field flow signature of a microswimmer is described by a combination of a force and a rotlet dipole. The presence of the membrane creates a non-linear coupling of this flow with the elastic deformation, thereby modifying the microswimmer's velocity. Using the Lorentz reciprocal theorem, we obtain a leading-order correction to the swimming velocity for small membrane deformations. The elastic deformations produce microswimmer trajectories that differ from those observed near rigid surfaces. We characterize them by identifying scattering and bound swimming states near the membrane. Our far-field results are compared to the analytical solution of an axisymmetric squirmer near the membrane.

Keywords: Microswimmers; Elastic surfaces; Stokes flow; Lorentz reciprocal theorem; squirmer