Twirling and Whirling: Viscous Dynamics of Rotating Elastica

Details Twirling and Whirling: Viscous Dynamics of Rotating Elastica Twirling and Whirling: Viscous Dynamics of Rotating Elastica

1999-12-20

arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/9912360v1

Physics

Condensed Matter

Soft Condensed Matter

To be published in Physical Review Letters

Scientific paper

10.1103/PhysRevLett.84.1623

Motivated by diverse phenomena in cellular biophysics, including bacterial flagellar motion and DNA transcription and replication, we study the overdamped nonlinear dynamics of a rotationally forced filament with twist and bend elasticity. Competition between twist injection, twist diffusion, and writhing instabilities is described by a novel pair of coupled PDEs for twist and bend evolution. Analytical and numerical methods elucidate the twist/bend coupling and reveal two dynamical regimes separated by a Hopf bifurcation: (i) diffusion-dominated axial rotation, or twirling, and (ii) steady-state crankshafting motion, or whirling. The consequences of these phenomena for self-propulsion are investigated, and experimental tests proposed.

Affiliated with

Also associated with

No associations

Rating

Twirling and Whirling: Viscous Dynamics of Rotating Elastica 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 Twirling and Whirling: Viscous Dynamics of Rotating Elastica, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Twirling and Whirling: Viscous Dynamics of Rotating Elastica will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

Comments { 0 }

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-714062