2008/05/20 by Vitaliy Gyrya, Igor S. Aranson, Gyrya, Vitaliy +6 · 1 citation
Engineering · Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #76Z10 #Analysis of PDEs (math.AP) #FOS: Mathematics #Micro and Nano Robotics #Microfluidic and Bio-sensing Technologies #Molecular Communication and Nanonetworks #math.AP #msc:76Z10
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.0805.3182
28 pages, 20 figures
openalex publication_date 2008/05/20 · arxiv created 2008/11/24 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
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.