2004/10/31 by Michael Reichert, M. Reichert, Holger Stark +1 · 1 citation
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Micro and Nano Robotics #Microfluidic and Bio-sensing Technologies #Nanopore and Nanochannel Transport Studies #cond-mat.soft
paper · pdf · doi:10.1140/epje/i2004-10152-7
published as Eur. Phys. J. E 17, 493 (2005) · 7 pages, 8 figures
openalex publication_date 2005/08/01 · arxiv created 2005/08/02 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Some types of bacteria use rotating helical flagella to swim. The motion of such organisms takes place in the regime of low Reynolds numbers where viscous effects dominate and where the dynamics is governed by hydrodynamic interactions. Typically, rotating flagella form bundles, which means that their rotation is synchronized. The aim of this study is to investigate whether hydrodynamic interactions can be at the origin of such a bundling and synchronization. We consider two stiff helices that are modelled by rigidly connected beads, neglecting any elastic deformations. They are driven by constant and equal torques, and they are fixed in space by anchoring their terminal beads in harmonic traps. We observe that, for finite trap strength, hydrodynamic interactions do indeed synchronize the helix rotations. The speed of phase synchronization decreases with increasing trap stiffness. In the limit of infinite trap stiffness, the speed is zero and the helices do not synchronize.