Rectification of Swimming Bacteria and Self Driven Particle Systems by Arrays of Asymmetric Barriers

TL;DR

This paper explains how asymmetric barriers rectify swimming bacteria movement through their ballistic trajectories, highlighting the role of bacterial motors and the impact of steric interactions on collective behavior.

Contribution

It demonstrates that bacterial rectification by barriers is due to ballistic motion from bacterial motors, contrasting with Brownian motion where rectification does not occur.

Findings

Rectification occurs due to ballistic bacterial trajectories.

Brownian motion does not produce rectification.

Steric interactions lead to clogging at higher densities.

Abstract

We show that the recent experimental observation of the rectification of swimming bacteria in a system with an array of asymmetric barriers occurs due to the ballistic component of the bacteria trajectories introduced by the bacterial "motor." Each bacteria selects a random direction for motion and then moves in this direction for a fixed period of time before randomly changing its orientation and moving in a new direction. In the limit where the bacteria undergo only Brownian motion, rectification by the barriers does not occur. We also examine the effects of steric interactions between the bacteria and observe a clogging effect upon increasing the bacteria density.