Gyrotaxis in a Steady Vortical Flow

We show that gyrotactic motility within a steady vortical flow leads to tightly clustered aggregations of microorganisms. Two dimensionless numbers, characterizing the relative swimming speed and stability against overturning by vorticity, govern the coupling between motility and flow. Exploration o...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Durham, William M. (Contributor), Climent, Eric (Author), Stocker, Roman (Contributor)
Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (Contributor)
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: American Physical Society, 2011-09-21T14:10:11Z.
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Online Access:Get fulltext
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100 1 0 |a Durham, William M.  |e author 
100 1 0 |a Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering  |e contributor 
100 1 0 |a Stocker, Roman  |e contributor 
100 1 0 |a Stocker, Roman  |e contributor 
100 1 0 |a Durham, William M.  |e contributor 
700 1 0 |a Climent, Eric  |e author 
700 1 0 |a Stocker, Roman  |e author 
245 0 0 |a Gyrotaxis in a Steady Vortical Flow 
260 |b American Physical Society,   |c 2011-09-21T14:10:11Z. 
856 |z Get fulltext  |u http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/65893 
520 |a We show that gyrotactic motility within a steady vortical flow leads to tightly clustered aggregations of microorganisms. Two dimensionless numbers, characterizing the relative swimming speed and stability against overturning by vorticity, govern the coupling between motility and flow. Exploration of parameter space reveals a striking array of patchiness regimes. Aggregations are found to form within a few overturning time scales, suggesting that vortical flows might be capable of efficiently separating species with different motility characteristics. 
520 |a National Science Foundation (U.S.) (NSF Grant No. OCE-0744641-CAREER) 
520 |a MIT International Science & Technology Initiative (MISTI-France grant) 
546 |a en_US 
655 7 |a Article 
773 |t Physical Review Letters