Dresden 2026 – scientific programme
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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik
BP 38: Active Matter VI (joint session DY/BP)
BP 38.9: Talk
Friday, March 13, 2026, 12:00–12:15, ZEU/0160
Instabilities and turbulence in extensile swimmer suspensions — •Purnima Jain1, Navdeep Rana3, Roberto Benzi4,5, and Prasad Perlekar2 — 1Leibniz-Institut für Polymerforschung Dresden, Germany — 2Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Hyderabad, India — 3Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization (MPIDS), Göttingen, Germany — 4Hangzhou International Innovation Institute, Beihang University, Hangzhou, China — 5Department of Physics and INFN, Tor Vergata University of Rome, Via della Ricerca Scientifica 1, Rome, Italy
Swimmers moving in the same direction form an ordered state of living matter. However, this ordered state is not always stable to ambient disturbances. This may lead to chaotic flows characterized by the presence of topological defects, a phenomenon known as active turbulence. The ordered state of microswimmers can be destroyed by an instability created by their swimming stresses. For slightly larger swimmers, where viscous and inertial forces are comparable, an instability due to the fluctuations in the concentration of swimmers destroys the order [1].
In this talk, I will discuss about the instabilities and turbulence in weakly inertial suspensions of extensile swimmers, where the defect turbulent state transitions to the concentration-wave turbulent state. These findings reveal new ways in which living matter may get organized in nature.
[1] P. Jain et. al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 133, 158302 (2024). [2] P. Jain et. al., Phys. Rev. Fluids 10, 114602 (2025).
Keywords: hydrodynamic instabilities; active and living matter; low reynolds number flows; collective behavior; self propelled particles