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Published on: November 26, 2019
Giant vortex dynamics in confined bacterial turbulence
L Puggioni1, G Boffetta1, S Musacchio1
1Dipartimento di Fisica and INFN, Università degli Studi di Torino, via P. Giuria 1, 10125 Torino, Italy.
Abstract:
We report the numerical evidence of a new state of bacterial turbulence in confined domains. By means of extensive numerical simulations of the Toner-Tu-Swift-Hohenberg model for dense bacterial suspensions in circular geometry, we discover the formation a stable, ordered state in which the angular momentum symmetry is broken. This is achieved by self-organization of a turbulent-like flow into a single, giant vortex of the size of the domain. The giant vortex is surrounded by an annular region close to the boundary, characterized by small-scale, radial vorticity streaks. The average radial velocity profile of the vortex is found to be in agreement with a simple analytical prediction. We also provide an estimate of the temporal and spatial scales of a suitable experimental setup comparable with our numerical findings.
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