Self-organized Beating and Swimming of Internally Driven Filaments

TL;DR

This paper presents a 2D model demonstrating that elastic filaments with internal stresses can spontaneously generate wave-like motions and propulsion through a self-organized dynamic instability, independent of microscopic details.

Contribution

It introduces a simplified model showing how internal stresses lead to self-organized beating and swimming in filaments, highlighting a universal mechanism for motility.

Findings

Wave-like propagating shapes can be induced by a self-organized mechanism.

The motion patterns depend only on filament rigidity and hydrodynamic friction.

Simplified systems of motors and filaments can exhibit beating and propulsion.

Abstract

We study a simple two-dimensional model for motion of an elastic filament subject to internally generated stresses and show that wave-like propagating shapes which can propel the filament can be induced by a self-organized mechanism via a dynamic instability. The resulting patterns of motion do not depend on the microscopic mechanism of the instability but only of the filament rigidity and hydrodynamic friction. Our results suggest that simplified systems, consisting only of molecular motors and filaments could be able to show beating motion and self-propulsion.