https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/i2012-12089-6
Regular Article
Active chiral fluids
1
Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems, Nöthnitzer Straße 38, 01187, Dresden, Germany
2
Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics, Pfotenhauerstraße 108, 01307, Dresden, Germany
* e-mail: swgrill@gmail.com
** e-mail: julicher@pks.mpg.de
Received:
15
March
2012
Revised:
25
July
2012
Accepted:
17
August
2012
Published online:
25
September
2012
Active processes in biological systems often exhibit chiral asymmetries. Examples are the chirality of cytoskeletal filaments which interact with motor proteins, the chirality of the beat of cilia and flagella as well as the helical trajectories of many biological microswimmers. Here, we derive constitutive material equations for active fluids which account for the effects of active chiral processes. We identify active contributions to the antisymmetric part of the stress as well as active angular momentum fluxes. We discuss four types of elementary chiral motors and their effects on a surrounding fluid. We show that large-scale chiral flows can result from the collective behavior of such motors even in cases where isolated motors do not create a hydrodynamic far field.
Key words: Regular Article - Topical issue: Active Matter
© EDP Sciences, SIF, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg, 2012