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Control of microswimmers by spiral nematic vortices: Transition from individual to collective motion and contraction, expansion, and stable circulation of bacterial swirls
The authors introduce a method to control swimming bacteria by a liquid crystal environment. The paper shows that a liquid crystal nematic patterned as a spiral vortex causes an individual-to-collective transition as the bacterial concentration increases, in which non-polar swimming of individual bacteria is replaced by a unipolar circular swirling …