Sommaire:

E.coli bacteria swim by rotating a helical flagellar bundle. The two phenomena that I will discuss are both related to the rotational flows that are generated by rotating propellers. The first example is about swimming of E.coli bacteria in the proximity of liquid-air interfaces. As opposed to swimming above a solid wall, we found bacteria swimming along anticlockwise circular trajectories. We quantitatively account for this through the hydrodynamic interaction of the bacterium with its own mirror image swimming on the opposite side of a perfect-slip boundary. In the second part of the talk I will talk about how swirling flows can couple nearby propellers and lead to phase locking. Using a combination of two-photon polymerization and holographic optical trapping we will discuss hydrodynamic synchronization in a number of micron scale models based on light driven rotators.

Pour plus d'informations, merci de contacter Stocco A.