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Ziane Izri

Publications and source records attributed to Ziane Izri.

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Edge Current and Pairing Order Transition in Chiral Bacterial Vortex

We report the selective stabilization of chiral rotational direction of bacterial vortices, from turbulent bacterial suspension, in achiral circular microwells sealed by an oil-water interface. This broken-symmetry, originating from the intrinsic chirality of bacterial swimming near hydrodynamically different top and bottom surfaces, generates a chiral edge current of bacteria at lateral boundary and grows stronger as bacterial density increases. We demonstrate that chiral edge current favors co-rotational configurations of interacting vortices, enhancing their ordering. The interplay between the intrinsic chirality of bacteria and the geometric properties of the boundary is a key-feature for the pairing order transition of active turbulence.

cond-mat.soft

Geometry-driven collective ordering of bacterial vortices

Controlling the phases of matter is a challenge that spans from condensed materials to biological systems. Here, by imposing a geometric boundary condition, we study controlled collective motion of Escherichia coli bacteria. A circular microwell isolates a rectified vortex from disordered vortices masked in bulk. For a doublet of microwells, two vortices emerge but their spinning directions show transition from parallel to anti-parallel. A Vicsek-like model for confined self-propelled particles gives the point where two spinning patterns occur in equal probability and one geometric quantity governs the transition as seen in experiments. This mechanism shapes rich patterns including chiral configurations in a quadruplet of microwells, thus revealing a design principle of active vortices.

cond-mat.soft

Self-propulsion of pure water droplets by spontaneous Marangoni stress driven motion

We report spontaneous motion in a fully bio-compatible system consisting of pure water droplets in an oil-surfactant medium of squalane and monoolein. Water from the droplet is solubilized by the reverse micellar solution, creating a concentration gradient of swollen reverse micelles around each droplet. The strong advection and weak diffusion conditions allow for the first experimental realization of spontaneous motion in a system of isotropic particles at sufficiently large Péclet number according to a straightforward generalization of a recently proposed mechanism. Experiments with a highly concentrated solution of salt instead of water, and tetradecane instead of squalane, confirm the above mechanism. The present swimming droplets are able to carry external bodies such as large colloids, salt crystals, and even cells.

cond-mat.soft