2012/09/09 by Maria L. Ekiel-Jeżewska, Maria L. Ekiel-Jezewska, Ekiel-Jezewska, Maria L.
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Diffusion and Search Dynamics #FOS: Physical sciences #Fluid Dynamics (physics.flu-dyn) #Micro and Nano Robotics #Particle Dynamics in Fluid Flows #Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft) #cond-mat.soft #physics.flu-dyn
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1209.1834
11 pages, 16 figures
openalex publication_date 2012/09/09 · arxiv created 2014/08/25 · arxiv updated 2014/08/26 · openalex created_date 2022/10/02 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We investigate regular configurations of a small number of particles settling under gravity in a viscous fluid. The particles do not touch each other and can move relative to each other. The dynamics is analyzed in the point-particle approximation. A family of regular configurations is found with periodic oscillations of all the settling particles. The oscillations are shown to be robust under some out-of-phase rearrangements of the particles. In the presence of an additional particle above such a regular configuration, the particle periodic trajectories are horizontally repelled from the symmetry axis, and flattened vertically. The results are used to propose a mechanism how a spherical cloud, made of a large number of particles distributed at random, evolves and destabilizes.