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Analysing the motion of scallop-like swimmers in a noisy environment

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Abstract

A scallop-like swimmer going back-and-forth (reciprocal motion) does not produce any net motility. We discuss a similar artificial microswimmer that is powered by magnetic fields. In the presence of thermal noise, the helical swimmer exhibits enhanced diffusivity during reciprocal actuation. The external magnetic drive can be further modified to break the reciprocity. Equipped with only the information on swimmer trajectories and orientations, we discuss quantitative methods to estimate the degree of reciprocity and non-reciprocity in such scenarios. The paper proposes a quantitative measure and validates the same with numerical simulations, further supported by experiments.

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Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge DBT, SERB and MeiTY for funding support, and the usage of the facilities in the Micro and Nano Characterization Facility and National Nano Fabrication Centre (CeNSE) at IISc.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, 560012, India

    Gouri Patil & Ambarish Ghosh

  2. Centre for Nano Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, 560012, India

    Ambarish Ghosh

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  1. Gouri Patil
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Correspondence to Ambarish Ghosh.

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Patil, G., Ghosh, A. Analysing the motion of scallop-like swimmers in a noisy environment. Eur. Phys. J. Spec. Top. 232, 927–933 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1140/epjs/s11734-022-00728-x

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