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Lévy walking droplets

V. S. Akella1, R. Rajesh2,3,*, and Mahesh V. Panchagnula1,†

  • 1Department of Applied Mechanics, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai 600036, India
  • 2The Institute of Mathematical Sciences, C.I.T. Campus, Taramani, Chennai 600113, India
  • 3Homi Bhabha National Institute, Training School Complex, Anushakti Nagar, Mumbai 400094, India

  • *rrajesh@imsc.res.in
  • †mvp@iitm.ac.in
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Phys. Rev. Fluids 5, 084002 – Published 3 August, 2020

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevFluids.5.084002

Abstract

Foraging and other natural phenomena show superdiffusive transport that are described by Lévy walks. We present a model experimental system, an octanoic acid (OA) drop on aqueous unsaturated OA solutions, for studying Lévy walks in controlled environments. The drop spontaneously moves due to unbalanced Marangoni forces, in a manner that mimics biological propulsion in living systems. The drop motion is shown to be a Lévy walk by demonstrating superdiffusive transport, Lévy-stable distributed step lengths, and power-law decay in the velocity autocorrelation function, with consistent exponents.

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Phys. Rev. Fluids 5, 084002– Published 3 August, 2020
  • Received 4 August 2019
  • Accepted 10 July 2020
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