Issue |
EPL
Volume 140, Number 4, November 2022
|
|
---|---|---|
Article Number | 47001 | |
Number of page(s) | 7 | |
Section | Biological and soft matter physics | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1209/0295-5075/aca11c | |
Published online | 22 November 2022 |
Active percolation in pusher-type microswimmers
1 Institut für Theoretische Physik II: Weiche Materie, Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf 40225 Düsseldorf, Germany
2 Department of Physics, University of California - Merced, 5200 N. Lake Road, Merced, CA 95343, USA
3 Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization (MPIDS) - Am Faßberg 17, 37077 Göttingen, Germany
4 Interdisciplinary Centre for Mathematical Modelling and Department of Mathematical Sciences, Loughborough University - Loughborough, Leicestershire LE11 3TU, UK
(a) E-mail: m.g.mazza@lboro.ac.uk (corresponding author)
Received: 29 July 2021
Accepted: 8 November 2022
The aggregation of microorganisms in colonies and biofilms underpins a myriad of biological processes, and has crucial implications in ecology and biomedical sciences. While much of our knowledge of microbial motion is based on single-cell mechanisms or cell-cell interactions, the origin of cooperativity in microbial communities is not yet fully understood. Here, we reveal the existence of a continuum percolation transition in two model suspensions of pusher-type microswimmers: an asymmetric dumbbell and a squirmer model. Clusters of swimmers held together by hydrodynamic forces dynamically aggregate and separate. Using simulations with explicit hydrodynamics and theory, we find that as the microswimmers' filling fraction increases, the cluster size distribution approaches a scale-free form and system-spanning clusters emerge.
© 2022 The author(s)
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