Helical ribbons: Simple chiral sedimentation
Elias Huseby, Josephine Gissinger, Fabien Candelier, Nimish Pujara, Gautier Verhille, B. Mehlig, Greg Voth
Abstract
We study the design of chiral particle shapes that couple translation to rotation in viscous fluid flow. Despite the importance of chiral design in many areas of science, there isn't a known hierarchy of increasingly complex geometry with translation-rotation coupling ranging from simple to the general case. We identify helical ribbons as particles with strong translation-rotation coupling that can be tuned from simple axisymmetric behavior through general co-centered dynamics by changing length. During sedimentation, even these simple particles show quasiperiodic angular dynamics with complex spatial trajectories that can be unconfined for special initial orientations.