Life at high Deborah number
In many biological systems, microorganisms swim through complex polymeric fluids, and usually deform the medium at a rate faster than the inverse fluid relaxation time. We address the basic properties of such life at high Deborah number analytically by considering the small-amplitude swimming of a b...
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Published in | Europhysics letters Vol. 86; no. 6; pp. 64001 - 64001P6 |
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Main Author | |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
IOP Publishing
01.06.2009
EDP Sciences |
Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | In many biological systems, microorganisms swim through complex polymeric fluids, and usually deform the medium at a rate faster than the inverse fluid relaxation time. We address the basic properties of such life at high Deborah number analytically by considering the small-amplitude swimming of a body in an arbitrary complex fluid. Using asymptotic analysis and differential geometry, we show that for a given swimming gait, the time-averaged leading-order swimming kinematics of the body can be expressed as an integral equation on the solution to a series of simpler Newtonian problems. We then use our results to demonstrate that Purcell's scallop theorem, which states that time-reversible body motion cannot be used for locomotion in a Newtonian fluid, breaks down in polymeric fluid environments. |
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Bibliography: | istex:5076D9D7F12302D4C026C44B2186A86F6557FD65 ark:/67375/80W-2JVQ19QQ-5 publisher-ID:epl11909 ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 ObjectType-Article-2 ObjectType-Feature-1 |
ISSN: | 0295-5075 1286-4854 |
DOI: | 10.1209/0295-5075/86/64001 |