TY - JOUR
T1 - Twirling and whirling
T2 - Viscous dynamics of rotating elastic filaments
AU - Wolgemuth, Charles W.
AU - Powers, Thomas R.
AU - Goldstein, Raymond E.
PY - 2000
Y1 - 2000
N2 - Motivated by diverse phenomena in cellular biophysics, including bacterial flagellar motion and DNA transcription and replication, we study the overdamped nonlinear dynamics of a rotationally forced filament with twist and bend elasticity. Competition between twist injection, twist diffusion, and writhing instabilities is described by coupled PDEs for twist and bend evolution. Analytical and numerical methods elucidate the twist/bend coupling and reveal two regimes separated by a Hopf bifurcation: (i) diffusion-dominated axial rotation, or twirling, and (ii) steady-state crankshafting motion, or whirling. The consequences of these phenomena for self-propulsion are investigated, and experimental tests proposed.
AB - Motivated by diverse phenomena in cellular biophysics, including bacterial flagellar motion and DNA transcription and replication, we study the overdamped nonlinear dynamics of a rotationally forced filament with twist and bend elasticity. Competition between twist injection, twist diffusion, and writhing instabilities is described by coupled PDEs for twist and bend evolution. Analytical and numerical methods elucidate the twist/bend coupling and reveal two regimes separated by a Hopf bifurcation: (i) diffusion-dominated axial rotation, or twirling, and (ii) steady-state crankshafting motion, or whirling. The consequences of these phenomena for self-propulsion are investigated, and experimental tests proposed.
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U2 - 10.1103/PhysRevLett.84.1623
DO - 10.1103/PhysRevLett.84.1623
M3 - Article
C2 - 11017583
AN - SCOPUS:0034645854
SN - 0031-9007
VL - 84
SP - 1623
EP - 1626
JO - Physical review letters
JF - Physical review letters
IS - 7
ER -