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DY: Fachverband Dynamik und Statistische Physik

DY 57: Statistical Physics of Biological Systems IV (joint session BP/DY)

DY 57.1: Hauptvortrag

Freitag, 13. März 2026, 09:30–10:00, BAR/SCHÖ

Swimming in complex environments — •Christina Kurzthaler — Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems

Microorganisms are omnipresent in the ocean, the human body, and our soils and therefore play an important role for various geological, biological, and medical processes. To optimize their survival and perform biological functions many microorganisms convert chemical energy into directed motion. In this talk, I will illustrate the underlying physical concepts and show concrete examples of our research, focusing on the interactions of microorganisms with their complex habitats. I will first discuss the motion of sperm in complex fluids and address their emergent dynamics in the presence of a hyperactivation agonist, modifying the sperm beating pattern. Second, I will focus on the first-passage-time statistics of active agents moving towards a target boundary. Our results highlight how swim gait impacts spreading and search efficiency in active systems with potential consequences for sperm motion in the reproductive tract and the accumulation of microbial communities.