The role of disorder in the motion of chiral swimmers in the presence of obstacles

TL;DR

This study investigates how various types of disorder affect the transport behavior of chiral micro-swimmers near obstacles, revealing conditions where obstacles can either enhance or hinder their diffusive motion.

Contribution

It introduces a numerical analysis of how different disorder types influence chiral swimmer transport, highlighting the complex role of obstacles in active matter systems.

Findings

Disorder can enhance or hinder micro-swimmer transport depending on its nature.

Obstacle density and disorder type critically influence diffusive behavior.

Implications for controlling active transport in disordered environments.

Abstract

The presence of obstacles is intuitively expected to hinder the diffusive transport of micro-swimmers. However, for chiral micro-swimmers, a low density of obstacles near a surface can enhance their diffusive behavior, due to the rectification of the chiral motion by the obstacles. Here, we study numerically the role that disorder plays in determining the transport dynamics of chiral micro-swimmers on surfaces with obstacles. We consider different densities of regularly spaced obstacles and distinct types of disorder: noise in the dynamics of the micro-swimmer, quenched noise in the positions of the obstacles as well as obstacle size polydispersity. We show that, depending on the type and strength of the disorder, the presence of obstacles can either enhance or hinder transport, and discuss implications for the control of active transport in disordered media.