UBC Math Department Colloquium: Sookkyung Lim

Swimming bacteria with helical flagella are self-propelled micro-swimmers in nature, and the swimming strategies of such bacteria vary depending on the number and the position of flagella on the cell body. In this talk, I will introduce two microorganisms, multi-flagellated E. coli and single-flagellated Vibrio A. The Kirchhoff rod theory is used to model the elastic helical flagella and the rod-shaped cell body is represented by a hollow ellipsoid that can translate and rotate as a neutrally buoyant rigid body interacting with a surrounding fluid. The hydrodynamic interaction between the fluid and the bacteria is described by the regularized version of Stokes flow. I will focus on how bacteria can swim and reorient swimming course for survival and how Mathematics can help to understand the swimming mechanism of such bacteria.