Hydrodynamics of bacterial motion

TL;DR

This paper develops a hydrodynamic model for bacterial motion, analyzing its behavior in turbulent regimes and identifying a phase transition influenced by noise, aligning with experimental and simulation data.

Contribution

It introduces a hydrodynamic framework for bacterial motility and reveals a phase transition driven by noise strength, advancing understanding of bacterial collective behavior.

Findings

Identification of a phase transition in bacterial motion

Model explains experimental observations

Results show turbulence-like behavior in bacteria

Abstract

In this paper we present a hydrodynamic approach to describe the motion of migrating bacteria as a special class of self-propelled systems. Analytical and numerical calculations has been performed to study the behavior of our model in the turbulent-like regime and to show that a phase transition occurs as a function of noise strength. Our results can explain previous experimental observations as well as results of numerical simulations.