AA << have quantified the effect of noise on swimmer dynamics in a steady, two-dimensional hyperbolic fluid flow. In such a flow, swimmers are ultimately forced to escape to the left or the right, with their transient dynamics near the passive unstable fixed point determining which way they go. >>
<< Without noise, a swimmer’s fate is sealed based on its position relative to the SwIM (swimming invariant manifolds) in the xθ phase space. With noise, the swimmer’s motion is a stochastic process. >>
AA << calculated the steady-state orientation distributions of diffusive, run-and-tumble, or mixed swimmers in the hyperbolic flow. The fluctuations give some swimmers greater opportunity to cross the SwIM and exit on the opposite side than they would have without noise. There is however a maximal distance that swimmers can get on either side of the passive fixed point and still be able to swim back to the other side—this is where the stable BIMs (burning invariant manifolds) block inward swimming particles. >>
<< Fluctuations make it increasingly likely that a swimmer close to one of these BIMs does indeed end up crossing it, causing irreversible changes to the fluctuating swimmers’ trajectories (assuming negligible translational diffusion). >>️
Simon A. Berman, Kevin A. Mitchell. Swimmer dynamics in externally-driven fluid flows: The role of noise. arXiv: 2108.10488v1 [physics.flu-dyn]. Aug 24, 2021.
keywords: gst, swimmer, swimming particle, fluid dynamics, chaotic dynamics, rotational diffusion, random fluctuation, tumbling, noise
