NIC Excellence Project Awarded to Prof. Gerhard Gompper

The NIC Peer Review Board regularly awards the title “NIC Excellence Project” to outstanding simulation projects. At its October meeting, the board decided to honour Prof. Gerhard Gompper (University of Cologne and Forschungszentrum Jülich) for his project on the collective dynamics of intelligent microswimmers.

Sensing of the environment and information processing, combined with motility, is a fundamental characteristic of life – from the largest animals to the smallest single-cell organisms. Adaptive self-steering gives rise to fascinating phenomena, ranging from large-scale collective behaviours referred to as swarming, as observed in mammalian herds, flocks of birds, schools of fish, and even cell layers and tissues to the formation of bacterial biofilms. Gompper and his group study the collective behaviour of cognitive self-steering microswimmers by means of large-scale hydrodynamic simulations using a particle-based mesoscale hydrodynamics approach combined with the squirmer model (prescribed surface flows) for the swimmer. Preliminary results show the formation of self-organized swirls and jets, depending on the manoeuvrability of the swimmer and the propulsion type (puller or pusher).

More details can be found on the NIC website.

Contact: Dr. Alexander Trautmann, coordination-office@gauss-centre.eu

from JSC News No. 300, 12 December 2023