Foundation and challenges in modelling dilute active suspensions

Active suspensions, which consist of suspended self-propelling particles such as swimming microorganisms, often exhibit non-trivial transport properties. Continuum models are frequently employed to elucidate phenomena in active suspensions, such as shear trapping of bacteria, bacterial turbulence and bioconvection patterns in suspensions of algae. Yet, these models are often empirically derived and may not always agree with the individual-based description of active particles. Here we review the essential coarse-graining steps to develop commonly used continuum models from their respective microscopic dynamics. All the assumptions needed to reach popular continuum models from a multi-particle Fokker-Planck equation, which governs the probability of the full configuration space, are explicitly presented. In the dilute limit, this approach leads to the mean-field model (a.k.a. Doi-Saintillan-Shelley model), which can be further reduced to a continuum equation for particle density. Moreover, we review the limitations and highlight the challenges related to continuum descriptions, including significant issues in implementing physical boundary conditions and the possible emergence of singular solutions.This article is part of the theme issue 'Biological fluid dynamics: emerging directions'.