Periodic Motion of Sedimenting Flexible Knots

Details

Serval ID
serval:BIB_86C1997A4259
Type
Article: article from journal or magazin.
Collection
Publications
Institution
Title
Periodic Motion of Sedimenting Flexible Knots
Journal
Physical Review Letters
Author(s)
Gruziel M., Thyagarajan K., Dietler G., Stasiak A., Ekiel-Jeżewska M.L., Szymczak P.
ISSN
1079-7114
ISSN-L
0031-9007
Publication state
Published
Issued date
2018
Peer-reviewed
Oui
Volume
121
Number
12
Pages
127801
Language
english
Abstract
We study the dynamics of knotted deformable closed chains sedimenting in a viscous fluid. We show experimentally that trefoil and other torus knots often attain a remarkably regular horizontal toroidal structure while sedimenting, with a number of intertwined loops, oscillating periodically around each other. We then recover this motion numerically and find out that it is accompanied by a very slow rotation around the vertical symmetry axis. We analyze the dependence of the characteristic timescales on the chain flexibility and aspect ratio. It is observed in the experiments that this oscillating mode of the dynamics can spontaneously form even when starting from a qualitatively different initial configuration. In numerical simulations, the oscillating modes are usually present as transients or final stages of the evolution, depending on chain aspect ratio and flexibility, and the number of loops.
Pubmed
Web of science
Create date
08/10/2018 7:48
Last modification date
04/11/2019 9:38
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