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Hydrodynamics of bacterial propulsion
In the first part of the talk I will discuss general theory of self-propulsion of flagellated bacteria like E. coli. I will derive a simple theory that takes into account hydrodynamic interactions and predicts propulsion speed and rotation rates of the organism.
In the second part of the talk, I will focus on a novel dynamical state recently observed in dilute solutions of the bacteria E. coli in the presence of short-range depletion-induced attraction between the bacteria [1]. When the attraction is strong enough, bacteria form clusters that simultaneously rotate and translate due to the active nature of individual particles constituting the clusters. I will discuss how to estimate the rotation and translation speed of the clusters as a function of the cluster’s size. The translational velocity is found to be roughly independent of, while the angular velocity decreases as a function of the cluster’s size.
[1] J. Schwarz-Linek et al. in preparation
Séminaires du laboratoire de Physique et mécanique des milieux hétérogènes : consulter le programme