Dispersion of biased swimming microorganisms in a fluid flowing through a tube

Abstract

Classical Taylor-Aris dispersion theory is extended to describe the transport of suspensions of self-propelled dipolar cells in a tubular flow. General expressions for the mean drift and effective diffusivity are determined exactly in terms of axial moments, and compared with an approximation a la Taylor. As in the Taylor-Aris case, the skewness of a finite distribution of biased swimming cells vanishes at long times. The general expressions can be applied to particular models of swimming microorganisms, and thus be used to predict swimming drift and diffusion in tubular bioreactors, and to elucidate competing unbounded swimming drift and diffusion descriptions. Here, specific examples are presented for gyrotactic swimming algae.Comment: 20 pages, 4 figures. Published version available at http://rspa.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2010/02/09/rspa.2009.0606.short?rss=