Instabilities and waves in thin films of living fluids

Details Instabilities and waves in thin films of living fluids Instabilities and waves in thin films of living fluids

2008-09-29

arxiv.org/abs/0809.4918v4

Physics

Condensed Matter

Soft Condensed Matter

4 pages, pdflatex, accepted for publication in Phys Rev Lett

Scientific paper

10.1103/PhysRevLett.102.118107

We formulate the thin-film hydrodynamics of a suspension of polar self-driven particles and show that it is prone to several instabilities through the interplay of activity, polarity and the existence of a free surface. Our approach extends, to self-propelling systems, the work of Ben Amar and Cummings [Phys Fluids 13 (2001) 1160] on thin-film nematics. Based on our estimates the instabilities should be seen in bacterial suspensions and the lamellipodium, and are potentially relevant to the morphology of biofilms. We suggest several experimental tests of our theory.

Affiliated with

Also associated with

No associations

Rating

Instabilities and waves in thin films of living fluids does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with Instabilities and waves in thin films of living fluids, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Instabilities and waves in thin films of living fluids will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

Comments { 0 }

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-48917