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arXiv · 2406.18756

Onset of spontaneous beating and whirling in the follower force model of an active filament

Ory Schnitzer
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Abstract

We study the onset of spontaneous dynamics in the follower force model of an active filament, wherein a slender elastic filament in a viscous liquid is clamped normal to a wall at one end and subjected to a tangential compressive force at the other. Clarke, Hwang and Keaveny (Phys. Rev. Fluids, to appear) have recently conducted a thorough investigation of this model using methods of computational dynamical systems; inter alia, they show that the filament first loses stability via a supercritical double-Hopf bifurcation, with periodic 'planar-beating' states (unstable) and 'whirling' states (stable) simultaneously emerging at the critical follower-force value. We complement their numerical study by carrying out a weakly nonlinear analysis close to this unconventional bifurcation, using the method of multiple scales. The main outcome is an 'amplitude equation' governing the slow modulation of small-magnitude oscillations of the filament in that regime. Analysis of this reduced-order model provides insights into the onset of spontaneous dynamics, including the creation of the nonlinear whirling states from particular superpositions of linear planar-beating modes as well as the selection of whirling over planar beating in three-dimensional scenarios.

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Ory Schnitzer. 2024-06-26. Onset of spontaneous beating and whirling in the follower force model of an active filament. https://doi.org/10.1017/jfm.2025.128

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