Regensburg 2016 – scientific programme

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DY: Fachverband Dynamik und Statistische Physik

DY 35: Active Matter (joint session DY/BP)

DY 35.3: Talk

Wednesday, March 9, 2016, 10:15–10:30, H46

Model of aerotactic bands — •Marco Giacomo Mazza — Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization, Göttingen

Some bacteria exhibit surprising behavior in the presence of an oxygen concentration. They perform an aerotactic motion along the gradient until they reach their optimal oxygen concentration. And they often organize collectively by forming dense regions, called 'bands', that travel towards the oxygen source. We have developed a model of swimmers with stochastic interaction rules moving in proximity of an air bubble. We perform MD simulations that reproduce the aerotactic behavior of bacteria. If the oxygen concentration in the system sinks locally below a threshold value, the formation of a migrating aerotactic band toward the bubble can be observed. We reproduce quantitatively the experimental observations on the aerotactic band.