Médéric Argentina

The Fern Sporangium: A Unique Catapult

High-speed observations reveal how rapid changes in cell shape powerfully eject fern spores. Various plants and fungi have evolved ingenious devices to disperse their spores. One such mechanism is the cavitation-triggered catapult of fern sporangia. The spherical sporangia enclosing the spores are equipped with a row of 12 to 13 specialized cells, the annulus. When dehydrating, these cells induce a dramatic change of curvature in the sporangium, which is released abruptly after the cavitation of the annulus cells. The entire ejection process is reminiscent of human-made catapults with one notable exception: The sporangia lack the crossbar that arrests the catapult arm in its returning motion. We show that much of the sophistication and efficiency of the ejection mechanism lies in the two very different time scales associated with the annulus closure.

Interface instability in shear-banding flow.

We report on the spatiotemporal dynamics of the interface in shear-banding flow of a wormlike micellar system (cetyltrimethylammonium bromide and sodium nitrate in water) during a start-up experiment. Using the scattering properties of the induced structures, we demonstrate the existence of an instability of the interface between bands along the vorticity direction. Different regimes of spatiotemporal dynamics of the interface are identified along the stress plateau. We build a model based on the flow symmetry which qualitatively describes the observed patterns.

Taylor-like Vortices in Shear-Banding Flow of Giant Micelles

Using flow visualizations in Couette geometry, we demonstrate the existence of Taylor-like vortices in the shear-banding flow of a giant micelles system. We show that vortices stacked along the vorticity direction develop concomitantly with interfacial undulations. These cellular structures are mainly localized in the induced band and their dynamics is fully correlated with that of the interface. As the control parameter increases, we observe a transition from a steady vortex flow to a state where pairs of vortices are continuously created and destroyed. Normal stress effects are discussed as potential mechanisms driving the three-dimensional flow.

Interface dynamics in shear-banding flow of giant micelles

We report on the non trivial dynamics of the interface between shear-bands following the initiation of flow in a semi-dilute wormlike micellar system investigated using a combination of mechanical and optical measurements under strain-controlled conditions. During build up of the banding structure, we observed the stages of formation and migration of the interface between bands and finally the destabilization of this interface along the vorticity axis. The mechanical signature of these processes has been identified in the time series of the shear stress. Interface instability occurs all along the stress plateau, the asymptotic wavelength of the patterns increasing with the control parameter, typically from a fraction of the gap width to about four times the gap width. Three main dynamics regimes are highlighted: a spatially stable oscillating mode approximately in the middle of the coexistence zone flanked by two regions where the dynamics appears more exotic with propagative and chaotic events respectively at low and high shear rates. The distribution of small particles seeded in the solution strongly suggests that the flow is three-dimensional. Finally, we demonstrate that the shear-banding scenario described in this paper is not specific to our system.

Wave-train-induced termination of weakly anchored vortices in excitable media.

A free vortex in excitable media can be displaced and removed by a wave train. However, simple physical arguments suggest that vortices anchored to large inexcitable obstacles cannot be removed similarly. We show that unpinning of vortices attached to obstacles smaller than the core radius of the free vortex is possible through pacing. The wave-train frequency necessary for unpinning increases with the obstacle size and we present a geometric explanation of this dependence. Our model-independent results suggest that decreasing excitability of the medium can facilitate pacing-induced removal of vortices in cardiac tissue.

An elasto-hydrodynamical model of friction for the locomotion of Caenorhabditis elegans

Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) is one of the most studied organisms by biologists. Composed of around one thousand cells, easy to culture and to modify genetically, it is a good model system to address fundamental physiological questions and in particular to investigate neuromuscular processes. Many C. elegans mutants can be distinguished by their locomotion phenotype and it then important to understand the biomechanics of their locomotion and in particular the mechanics of their undulating crawling motion on agar aqueous gels where they are commonly grown and observed. In this article, we present a mechanical model of the friction of the worms on their substrate where we have included capillarity (which pins the worm of the gel), the hydrodynamics of the lubrication film (between worm and gel) and the substrate/body elasticity. We determine the ratio of the transverse to longitudinal friction coefficients of the worm body on the culture gel as a function of a control parameter which describes the relative role of the deformation of the gel and the viscous dissipation in the lubrication film. Experimentally this ratio is - for soft gels - larger than the maximal value predicted by our model (this maximum is equal to 2, the value for an infinite cylinder in bulk liquid) and we propose to include the plasticity of the gel (i.e. the dissipation of the deformation of the gel) for a better description of the worm/gel interaction.

STATIONARY LOCALIZED SOLUTIONS IN THE SUBCRITICAL COMPLEX GINZBURG–LANDAU EQUATION

It is shown that pulses in the complete quintic one-dimensional Ginzburg–Landau equation with complex coefficients appear through a saddle-node bifurcation which is determined analytically through a suitable approximation of the explicit form of the pulses. The results are in excellent agreement with direct numerical simulations.

Gait and speed selection in slender inertial swimmers

Significance Swimming relies on linking internal neural dynamics to body mechanics and environmental hydrodynamics. To characterize this in an integrative setting we present a minimal theoretical framework that synthesizes the roles of passive body elasticity, hydrodynamics, muscular activation, and proprioceptive sensory feedback in inertial swimmers. Our findings quantitatively explain a range of classic experimental observations linking gait and speed in a range of swimming fish. Our calculations also yield a mechanism for how elastohydrodynamic resonances lead to optimal gait selection. Finally, we show that a self-organized propulsive gait can be achieved via a proprioceptive mechanism wherein local muscle activation is driven by shape change, without the need for a central pattern generator, suggestive of ways to engineer robotic swimmers. Inertial swimmers use flexural movements to push water and generate thrust. We quantify this dynamical process for a slender body in a fluid by accounting for passive elasticity and hydrodynamics and active muscular force generation and proprioception. Our coupled elastohydrodynamic model takes the form of a nonlinear eigenvalue problem for the swimming speed and locomotion gait. The solution of this problem shows that swimmers use quantized resonant interactions with the fluid environment to enhance speed and efficiency. Thus, a fish is like an optimized diode that converts a prescribed alternating transverse motion to forward motion. Our results also allow for a broad comparative view of swimming locomotion and provide a mechanistic basis for the empirical relation linking the swimmer’s speed U, length L, and tail beat frequency f, given by U/L∼f [Bainbridge R (1958) J Exp Biol 35:109–133]. Furthermore, we show that a simple form of proprioceptive sensory feedback, wherein local muscle activation is function of body curvature, suffices to drive elastic instabilities associated with thrust production and leads to a spontaneous swimming gait without the need for a central pattern generator. Taken together, our results provide a simple mechanistic view of swimming consistent with natural observations and suggest ways to engineer artificial swimmers for optimal performance.

On the back-firing instability

The onset of the back-firing instability is studied in a one-dimensional spatially extended and dissipative system, where propagating localized solutions become unstable. It corresponds to the emission in the tail of a solitary wave of a new wave propagating in the opposite direction. The transition is illustrated, in geometrical terms, using a model normal form equation. (c) 2004 American Institute of Physics.

A generic mechanism for spatiotemporal intermittency

A simple mechanism for spatiotemporal intermittency is described. It occurs in systems that exhibit bistability between a homogeneous stationary state and an oscillatory one, close to parameter values where the oscillation disappears through an Andronov homoclinic bifurcation.