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arXiv · 1606.07342

Modeling a spheroidal microswimmer and cooperative swimming in thin films

Mario Theers·Elmar Westphal·Gerhard Gompper·Roland G. Winkler
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Abstract

We propose a hydrodynamic model for a spheroidal microswimmer with two tangential surface velocity modes. This model is analytically solvable and reduces to Lighthill's and Blake's spherical squirmer model in the limit of equal major and minor semi-axes. Furthermore, we present an implementation of such a spheroidal squirmer by means of multiparticle collision dynamics simulations. We investigate its properties as well as the scattering of two spheroidal squirmers in a slit geometry. Thereby we find a stable fixed point, where two pullers swim cooperatively forming a wedge-like conformation with a small constant angle.

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Mario Theers, Elmar Westphal, Gerhard Gompper, Roland G. Winkler. 2016-06-23. Modeling a spheroidal microswimmer and cooperative swimming in thin films. https://doi.org/10.1039/c6sm01424k

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