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DY: Fachverband Dynamik und Statistische Physik
DY 4: Focus Session: Nonlinear Dynamics and Stochastic Processes – Advances in Theory and Applications I
DY 4.11: Talk
Monday, March 17, 2025, 12:45–13:00, H43
Chemo-mechanical motility modes of partially wetting liquid droplets — •Florian Voss1 and Uwe Thiele1,2 — 1Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of Münster, Germany — 2Center for Nonlinear Science, University of Münster, Germany
We consider a simple thermodynamically consistent model that captures the interplay between an autocatalytic reaction of chemical species on the free surface of a droplet, the solutal Marangoni effect and the physics of wetting in the presence of chemical fuel [1]. We find that a positive feedback loop between the local reactions and the Marangoni effect induces surface tension gradients, allowing for self-propelled droplets. Besides simple directional motion, we find crawling, shuttling and randomly moving droplets. We study the occurring dynamics and show how the observed states generically emerge from (global) bifurcations. We speculate that our results may also be relevant to the study of cell crawling [2] and self-propelled biomolecular condensates [3].
[1] Voss, F., Thiele, U., J. Eng. Math. 149, 2024
[2] Ziebert, F., Swaminatahan, S., Aranson, I., J. R. Soc. Interface 9, 2012
[3] Demarchi, L., Goychuk, A., Maryshev, I., Frey, E., Phys. Rev. Lett 130, 2024
Keywords: Chemo-hydrodynamics; Nonequilibrium Thermodynamics; Wetting; Marangoni effect; Autocatalysis