2024/11/06 by Vaseem A. Shaik, Jiahao Gong, Shaik, Vaseem A. +3
Chemical Engineering · #FOS: Physical sciences #Fluid Dynamics (physics.flu-dyn) #Rheology and Fluid Dynamics Studies #Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft)
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2411.04226
openalex publication_date 2024/11/06 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Organisms often swim through fluids that are spatially inhomogeneous. If the fluids are polymeric, gradients in polymer concentration may lead to gradients in both fluid viscosity and elasticity. In this letter, we present theoretical results for the dynamics of active particles, biological or otherwise, swimming through spatially inhomogeneous viscoelastic fluids. We model the active particles using the squirmer model, and show that spatial variations in fluid relaxation time lead to a novel mechanism for reorientation and taxis in viscoelastic fluids, which we refer to as a form of durotaxis in fluids.