Simulations of Brownian tracer transport in squirmer suspensions
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Published version
Author(s)
Delmotte, Blaise
Keaveny, Eric E
Climent, Eric
Plouraboue, Franck
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
In addition to enabling movement towards environments with favourable living conditions, swimming by microorganisms has also been linked to enhanced mixing and improved nutrient uptake by their populations. Experimental studies have shown that Brownian tracer particles exhibit enhanced diffusion due to the swimmers, while theoretical models have linked this increase in diffusion to the flows generated by the swimming microorganisms, as well as collisions with the swimmers. In this study, we perform detailed simulations based on the force-coupling method and its recent extensions to the swimming and Brownian particles to examine tracer displacements and effective tracer diffusivity in squirmer suspensions. By isolating effects such as hydrodynamic or steric interactions, we provide physical insight into experimental measurements of the tracer displacement distribution. In addition, we extend results to the semi-dilute regime where the swimmer–swimmer interactions affect tracer transport and the effective tracer diffusivity no longer scales linearly with the swimmer volume fraction.
Date Issued
2018-07
Date Acceptance
2018-02-15
Citation
IMA Journal of Applied Mathematics, 2018, 83 (4), pp.680-699
ISSN
0272-4960
Publisher
Oxford University Press
Start Page
680
End Page
699
Journal / Book Title
IMA Journal of Applied Mathematics
Volume
83
Issue
4
Copyright Statement
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
License URL
Identifier
https://academic.oup.com/imamat/article/83/4/680/5054626
Subjects
active suspensions
FLOW
FORCE-COUPLING METHOD
Mathematics
Mathematics, Applied
PARTICLE DIFFUSION
Physical Sciences
Science & Technology
simulations
squirmers
tracer dispersion
TURBULENCE
Publication Status
Published
Date Publish Online
2018-07-25