TY  - JOUR
AU  - Isele-Holder, Rolf
AU  - Elgeti, Jens
AU  - Gompper, Gerhard
TI  - Self-propelled worm-like filaments: spontaneous spiral formation, structure, and dynamicsI
JO  - Soft matter
VL  - 11
IS  - 36
SN  - 1744-6848
CY  - London
PB  - Royal Soc. of Chemistry
M1  - FZJ-2015-06196
SP  - 7181 - 7190
PY  - 2015
AB  - Worm-like filaments that are propelled homogeneously along their tangent vector are studied by Brownian dynamics simulations. Systems in two dimensions are investigated, corresponding to filaments adsorbed to interfaces or surfaces. A large parameter space covering weak and strong propulsion, as well as flexible and stiff filaments is explored. For strongly propelled and flexible filaments, the free-swimming filaments spontaneously form stable spirals. The propulsion force has a strong impact on dynamic properties, such as the rotational and translational mean square displacement and the rate of conformational sampling. In particular, when the active self-propulsion dominates thermal diffusion, but is too weak for spiral formation, the rotational diffusion coefficient has an activity-induced contribution given by vc/ξP, where vc is the contour velocity and ξP the persistence length. In contrast, structural properties are hardly affected by the activity of the system, as long as no spirals form. The model mimics common features of biological systems, such as microtubules and actin filaments on motility assays or slender bacteria, and artificially designed microswimmers.
LB  - PUB:(DE-HGF)16
UR  - <Go to ISI:>//WOS:000360656900014
C6  - pmid:26256415
DO  - DOI:10.1039/C5SM01683E
UR  - https://juser.fz-juelich.de/record/256220
ER  -