Squirming through shear thinning fluids

Many microorganisms find themselves surrounded by fluids which are non-Newtonian in nature; human spermatozoa in female reproductive tract and motile bacteria in mucosa of animals are common examples. These biological fluids can display shear-thinning rheology whose effects on the locomotion of microorganisms remain largely unexplored. Here we study the self-propulsion of a squirmer in shear-thinning fluids described by the Carreau-Yasuda model. The squirmer undergoes surface distortions and utilizes apparent slip-velocities around its surface to swim through a fluid medium. In this talk, we will discuss how the nonlinear rheological properties of a shear-thinning fluid affect the propulsion of a swimmer compared with swimming in Newtonian fluids.