Eur. Phys. J. Special Topics 225, 2389-2406 (2016)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjst/e2016-60068-6

Regular Article

Bacterial suspensions under flow

¹ PMMH, UMR 7636 CNRS – ESPCI – University Pierre et Marie Curie – University Denis Diderot, 10 rue Vauquelin, 75005 Paris, France
² Laboratoire de Physique des Solides, Université Paris-Sud, CNRS UMR 8502, 91405 Orsay, France
³ Univ Paris-Sud, CNRS, Lab FAST, Bât 502, Campus Univ Orsay, 91405 Orsay, France

^a e-mail: eric.clement@upmc.fr

Received: 29 February 2016
Revised: 10 May 2016
Published online: 10 November 2016

Abstract

Fluids laden with motile bacteria enter in the category of active matter, a new field currently developing at the convergence of biology, hydrodynamics and statistical physics. Such suspensions were shown recently to exhibit singular macroscopic transport properties. In this paper we review some recent results, either theoretical or experimental, on the active fluid rheology. We focus principally on bacteria suspensions and the objective is to provide the basis for understanding the emergence of the singular constitutive relations characterizing the macroscopic transport properties of such an active fluid under flow.