Tootfinder

Magnetic control of magnetotactic bacteria swarms
Mihails Birjukovs, Klaas Bente, Damien Faivre, Guntars Kitenbergs, Andrejs Cebers
https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.18941 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2404.18941
arXiv:2404.18941v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Magnetotactic bacteria (MTB) are of significant fundamental and practical interest, especially for applications such as drug delivery and general-purpose object manipulators and payload carriers. While magnetic and other modes of control for individual MTB have been demonstrated, formation, motion and control of MTB swarms are much less studied and understood. Here, we present a torque dipole-based theoretical model for magnetic control of MTB swarms and two methods for swarm formation, and provide experimental validation of the proposed motion model. Model predictions are in good qualitative and quantitative agreement with experiments and literature. Additionally, we were able to determine the torque generated by Magnetospirillium gryphiswaldense (MSR-1) MTB, and the value corresponds to the reported estimates reasonably well.