Active mixing in laminar flows: How is a swimming microbe like a forest fire?

Add to your list(s) Download to your calendar using vCal

• Tom Solomon, Bucknell University
• Thursday 28 March 2024, 13:00-14:00
• MR15, Centre for Mathematical Sciences, Wilberforce Road, Cambridge.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Marco Vona.

We present experiments on the effects of laminar flows on the motion of swimming microbes and on the motion of the excitable Belousov-Zhabotinsky chemical reaction. This is a topic with applications to a wide range of systems including microfluidic chemical reactors, self-assembly of novel materials, blooms of harmful algae in the oceans, and the effects of moving populations on the spreading of a disease. A universal theoretical framework of active mixing predicts invariant manifolds—“burning invariant manifolds” (BIMs) for front propagation and “swimming invariant manifolds” (SwIMs) for self-propelled tracers—that act as one-way barriers for both of these systems. In fact, the problem of front propagation is a special case of the more general, active mixing theory. We present results from several experiments: (a) BIMs blocking reaction fronts in a range of 2-D and 3-D vortex-dominated flows; (b) SwIMs blocking motion of swimming bacteria and eukaryotic microbes in a microfluidic hyperbolic flow in a cross channel; and (c ) on-going experiments about the behavior of swimming microbes in vortex flows.

This talk is part of the DAMTP BioLunch series.

This talk is included in these lists:

• All CMS events
• BioLunch
• CMS Events
• CamBridgeSens
• Cambridge talks
• DAMTP BioLunch
• DAMTP info aggregator
• Interested Talks
• Life Science Interface Seminars
• MR15, Centre for Mathematical Sciences, Wilberforce Road, Cambridge
• Trust & Technology Initiative - interesting events
• bld31

Note that ex-directory lists are not shown.