Bacterial Turbulence at Compressible Fluid Interfaces

Dense bacterial suspensions at fluid interfaces provide a natural platform to explore active turbulence in a dimensional mismatch: active units are restricted to a two-dimensional surface, while the induced flows extend into the surrounding three-dimensional liquid. Using hydrophobic Serratia marcescens at the air-water interface, we realize interfacial bacterial turbulence as a distinct class of active turbulence. The system exhibits compressible in-plane flows, with the vortex size increasing with the thickness of the underlying fluid before saturating at a finite scale. This behavior contrasts sharply with bulk active turbulence, where correlation length typically scales with system size. Hydrodynamic theory, together with direct measurements of the three-dimensional flow field, shows that the coupling between interfacial and bulk flows sets the emergent length scale. Our results uncover the fundamental physics of interfacial bacterial turbulence and open new strategies for geometric control of collective active flows.