Designing, synthesizing, and modeling active fluids

Rheology of Active Fluids

An active fluid denotes a viscous suspension of particles, cells, or macromolecules able to convert chemical energy into mechanical work by generating stresses on the microscale. By virtue of this internal energy conversion, these systems display unusual macroscopic rheological signatures, including a curious transition to an apparent superfluid-like state where internal activity exactly compen...

Hydrodynamics of confined active fluids.

We theoretically describe the dynamics of swimmer populations in rigidly confined thin liquid films. We first demonstrate that hydrodynamic interactions between confined swimmers depend solely on their shape and are independent of their specific swimming mechanism. We also show that, due to friction with the nearby rigid walls, confined swimmers do not just reorient in flow gradients but also i...

Pulsatory Patterns in Active Fluids

K. Vijay Kumar, Justin S. Bois, Frank Jülicher, and Stephan W. Grill Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems, Nöthnitzerstraße 38, 01187 Dresden, Germany Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics, Pfotenhauerstraße 108, 01307 Dresden, Germany BIOTEC, Technische Universität Dresden, Tatzberg 47/49, 01307 Dresden, Germany California Institute of Technology Divisi...

SImulations and Modeling for PArticles and Fluids

Modeling and Designing Heterogeneous Systems