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Full-Text Articles in Physics

Long-Range And Chaotic Active Mixing Of Swimming Microbes In A Vortex Chain Flow, Nghia Le Jan 2023

Long-Range And Chaotic Active Mixing Of Swimming Microbes In A Vortex Chain Flow, Nghia Le

Honors Theses

We present experiments studying the motion and active mixing of swimming mi- crobes in laminar, vortex-dominated fluid flows. We are testing a theory that predicts the existence of swimming invariant manifolds (SwIMs) - invisible, one-way barriers blocking the paths of self-propelled tracers in the flow in one direction. We also pro- pose that the SwIMs together can form chute structures in three-dimensional phase space that facilitate cross-vortex transport of the microbes. We also observe evidence of how these structures promote long-range transport at different non-dimensional velocities (microbe’s velocity relative to flow velocity). Long-range transport is quan- tified by measuring the …


Linked-Cluster Expansions For Lattice Spin Models, Yuyi Wan Jan 2020

Linked-Cluster Expansions For Lattice Spin Models, Yuyi Wan

Honors Theses

Similar to various series expansions that are used to approximate mathematical func- tions, the linked-cluster expansion is an approximation method that allows us to approach the actual values of a very large physical system’s different physical quan- tities by systematically studying smaller systems embedded in this larger system. The main concept in linked-cluster expansion, weight, represents the additional con- tribution to a certain physical quantity by increasing the system size by one unit. These weights are used to eventually build up the result on a larger system. In our case, we focus on the partition function, a quantity that can …