Swimming with a friend at low Reynolds number
| dc.creator | Pooley, C. M. | |
| dc.creator | Alexander, G. P. | |
| dc.creator | Yeomans, J. M. | |
| dc.date | 2007-05-24 | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2026-07-07T08:03:07Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2026-07-07T08:03:07Z | |
| dc.description | We investigate the hydrodynamic interactions between microorganisms swimming at low Reynolds number. By considering simple model swimmers, and combining analytic and numerical approaches, we investigate the time-averaged flow field around a swimmer. At short distances the swimmer behaves like a pump. At large distances the velocity field depends on whether the swimming stroke is invariant under a combined time-reversal and parity transformation. We then consider two swimmers and find that the interaction between them consists of two parts; a dead term, independent of the motion of the second swimmer, which takes the expected dipolar form and a live term resulting from the simultaneous swimming action of both swimmers which does not. We argue that, in general, the latter dominates. The swimmer--swimmer interaction is a complicated function of their relative displacement, orientation and phase, leading to motion that can be attractive, repulsive or oscillatory. | |
| dc.description | 6 pages, 4 figures | |
| dc.identifier | https://arxiv.org/abs/0705.3612 | |
| dc.identifier | http://arxiv.org/abs/0705.3612 | |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://salesiana.dossiersoluciones.com/handle/123456789/129464 | |
| dc.subject | Soft Condensed Matter | |
| dc.subject | Other Condensed Matter | |
| dc.subject | Biological Physics | |
| dc.subject | Other Quantitative Biology | |
| dc.title | Swimming with a friend at low Reynolds number | |
| dc.type | text |