Microscopic URLanismslocomote in viscous fluids through spontaneous beating of filamentous structures anchored at one end, such as flagella and cilia. Prokaryotic flagella rotate rigidly like a corkscrew, while eukaryotic flagella are flexible and oscillate in a plane. We observe similar biomimetic beating behaviorin silico by clamping an active filament at one end and solving for hydrodynamics interactions. Highly active filaments become unstable to transverse perturbations and exhibit autonomous oscillations . This transition into a limit cycle occurs via a supercritical Hopf bifurcation. The time period and amplitude of beating increase with increasing filament length, but collapse to a master curve on appropriate scaling. An analytical calculation of the spectrum of the filament model in the free-draining approximation fails to capture oscillatory behavior, emphasizing the crucial role played by hydrodynamic interactions .
 Non-equilibrium processes which convert chemical energy into mechanical motion enable the motility URLanisms . Bundles of inextensible filaments driven by energy transduction of molecular motors form essential components of micron-scale motility engines like cilia and flagella. The mimicry of cilia-like motion in recent experiments on synthetic active filaments supports the idea that generic physical mechanisms may be sufficient to generate such motion. Here we show, theoretically, that the competition between the destabilising effect of hydrodynamic interactions induced by force-free and torque-free chemomechanically active flows, and the stabilising effect of nonlinear elasticity, provides a generic route to spontaneous oscillations in active filaments. These oscillations, reminiscent of prokaryotic and eukaryotic flagellar motion, are obtained without having to invoke structural complexity or biochemical regulation. This minimality implies that biomimetic oscillations, previously observed only in complex bundles of active filaments, can be replicated in simple chains of generic chemomechanically active beads .
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Microscopic URLanismslocomote in viscous fluids through spontaneous beating of filamentous structures anchored at one end, such as flagella and cilia. Prokaryotic flagella rotate rigidly like a corkscrew, while eukaryotic flagella are flexible and oscillate in a plane. We observe similar biomimetic beating behavior
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in silico
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by clamping an active filament at one end and solving for hydrodynamics interactions. Highly active filaments become unstable to transverse perturbations and exhibit autonomous oscillations
Non-equilibrium processes which convert chemical energy into mechanical motion enable the motility URLanisms
R
This transition into a limit cycle occurs via a supercritical Hopf bifurcation. The time period and amplitude of beating increase with increasing filament length, but collapse to a master curve on appropriate scaling. An analytical calculation of the spectrum of the filament model in the free-draining approximation fails to capture oscillatory behavior, emphasizing the crucial role played by hydrodynamic interactions
Bundles of inextensible filaments driven by energy transduction of molecular motors form essential components of micron-scale motility engines like cilia and flagella. The mimicry of cilia-like motion in recent experiments on synthetic active filaments supports the idea that generic physical mechanisms may be sufficient to generate such motion. Here we show, theoretically, that the competition between the destabilising effect of hydrodynamic interactions induced by force-free and torque-free chemomechanically active flows, and the stabilising effect of nonlinear elasticity, provides a generic route to spontaneous oscillations in active filaments. These oscillations, reminiscent of prokaryotic and eukaryotic flagellar motion, are obtained without having to invoke structural complexity or biochemical regulation. This minimality implies that biomimetic oscillations, previously observed only in complex bundles of active filaments, can be replicated in simple chains of generic chemomechanically active beads