title: Autonomous motility of active filaments due to spontaneous flow-symmetry breaking.
abstract: We simulate the nonlocal Stokesian hydrodynamics of an elastic filament which is active due a permanent distribution of stresslets along its contour. A bending instability of an initially straight filament spontaneously breaks flow symmetry and leads to autonomous filament motion which, depending on conformational symmetry, can be translational or rotational. At high ratios of activity to elasticity, the linear instability develops into nonlinear fluctuating states with large amplitude deformations. The dynamics of these states can be qualitatively understood as a superposition of translational and rotational motion associated with filament conformational modes of opposite symmetry. Our results can be tested in molecular-motor filament mixtures, synthetic chains of autocatalytic particles, or other linearly connected systems where chemical energy is converted to mechanical energy in a fluid environment.
authors.affiliation: The Institute of Mathematical Sciences, CIT Campus, Chennai 600113, India.
authors.forename: Gayathri
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Jayaraman
authors.forename: Sanoop
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ramachandran
authors.forename: Somdeb
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ghose
authors.forename: Abhrajit
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Laskar
authors.forename: M Saad
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Bhamla
authors.forename: P B Sunil
authors.initials: PB
authors.lastname: Kumar
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Adhikari
mesh_terms: D040761:Biomimetic Materials / Q000737:chemistry; D004548:Elasticity; D057446:Hydrodynamics; D008956:Models, Chemical; D008968:Molecular Conformation; D017711:Nonlinear Dynamics; D011108:Polymers / Q000737:chemistry*; D013816:Thermodynamics; D014783:Viscosity
chemical_list: D011108:Polymers