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A Model of Hydrodynamic Interaction Between Swimming Bacteria

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Abstract

We study the dynamics and interaction of two swimming bacteria, modeled by self-propelled dumbbell-type structures. We focus on alignment dynamics of a coplanar pair of elongated swimmers, which propel themselves either by “pushing” or “pulling” both in three- and quasi-two-dimensional geometries of space. We derive asymptotic expressions for the dynamics of the pair, which complemented by numerical experiments, indicate that the tendency of bacteria to swim in or swim off depends strongly on the position of the propulsion force. In particular, we observe that positioning of the effective propulsion force inside the dumbbell results in qualitative agreement with the dynamics observed in experiments, such as mutual alignment of converging bacteria.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mathematics, Pennsylvania State University, 418 McAllister Building, University Park, PA, 16802, USA

    Vitaliy Gyrya

  2. Materials Science Division, Argonne National Laboratory, 9700 South Cass Avenue, Argonne, IL, 60439, USA

    Igor S. Aranson

  3. Department of Mathematics, Pennsylvania State University, 337 McAllister Building, University Park, PA, 16802, USA

    Leonid V. Berlyand

  4. Mathematics and Computer Science Division, Argonne National Laboratory, 9700 South Cass Avenue, Argonne, IL, 60439, USA

    Dmitry Karpeev

Authors
  1. Vitaliy Gyrya
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  2. Igor S. Aranson
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  3. Leonid V. Berlyand
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  4. Dmitry Karpeev
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Correspondence to Vitaliy Gyrya.

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Gyrya, V., Aranson, I.S., Berlyand, L.V. et al. A Model of Hydrodynamic Interaction Between Swimming Bacteria. Bull. Math. Biol. 72, 148–183 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11538-009-9442-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11538-009-9442-6

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