English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Global: Zendy Plus annual

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Global: Zendy Tools annual

Global: Zendy Free Plan

Global: Zendy Tools monthly

Global: Zendy Plus monthly

The self-propulsion of artificial and biological microswimmers (i.e., activecolloidal particles) has often been modelled by using a force and a torqueentering into the overdamped equations for the Brownian motion of passiveparticles. This seemingly contradicts the fact that a swimmer is force-free andtorque-free, i.e., that the net force and torque on the particle vanish. Usingdifferent models for mechanical and diffusiophoretic self-propulsion, wedemonstrate here that the equations of motion of microswimmers can be mappedonto those of passive particles with the shape-dependent grand resistancematrix and formally external effective forces and torques. This is consistentwith experimental findings on the circular motion of artificial asymmetricmicroswimmers driven by self-diffusiophoresis. The concept of effectiveself-propulsion forces and torques significantly facilitates the understandingof the swimming paths, e.g., for a microswimmer under gravity. However, thisconcept has its limitations when the self-propulsion mechanism of a swimmer isdisturbed either by another particle in its close vicinity or by interactionswith obstacles, such as a wall.

Can the self-propulsion of anisotropic microswimmers be described by using forces and torques?