Theorie Kolloquium | November 16, 16:30
Active particles and fluid flow
Active motion of particles in aqueous solution may lead to interesting
collective phenomena such as pattern formation or macroscopic fluid flows. I
will discuss two examples where this can be observed. First, I will present
lattice Boltzmann simulations of a microscopic model for cytoplasmic
streaming in algal cells. Here, myosin motors entrain the surrounding fluid by
walking along actin filaments while dragging vesicles or other organelles. I
will pay particular attention to how the high speeds observed in experiments can
be achieved by assuming a layer of lower viscosity at the outer wall of the
simulated compartment. The second example is a system of sedimenting
self-propelled particles with the additional property of bottom-heaviness, which
results in a tendency of particles to swim upwards. I will give analytical
results for the dilute limit and numerical results for the interacting case
where particles form vortices and columns.
TU Berlin
Seminarraum Theoretische Physik
Contact: not specified