Phys. Rev. Lett. 99, 108102 (2007) [4 pages]Model for Self-Propulsive Helical Filaments: Kink-Pair PropagationReceived 24 March 2007; published 7 September 2007 Spiroplasma bacteria propel through viscous fluids by sending kinks or domain walls between regions of opposite handedness down their helical body. A simple elastic model for the domain-wall propagation is formulated and studied using hydrodynamic simulations and scaling arguments, giving good agreement with recent video-microscopy observations. It is shown that the observed helical bacterial pitch angle ψ≃35° is optimized for maximal speed and efficiency. © 2007 The American Physical Society URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.99.108102
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.99.108102
PACS:
47.63.Gd, 87.16.Ka, 87.17.Jj
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