Exploitation-exploration transition in the physics of fluid-driven branching

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Tauber, J., Asnacios, J., Mahadevan, L.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Tauber, J.
Asnacios, J.
Mahadevan, L.
author_facet Tauber, J.
Asnacios, J.
Mahadevan, L.
contents Self-organized branching structures can emerge spontaneously as interfacial instabilities in both simple and complex fluids, driven by the interplay between bulk material rheology, boundary constraints, and interfacial forcing. In our experiments, injecting dye between a source and a sink in a Hele-Shaw cell filled with a yield-stress fluid reveals an abrupt transition in morphologies as a function of injection rate. Slow injection leads to a direct path connecting the source to the sink, while fast injection leads to a rapid branching morphology that eventually converges to the sink. This shift from an exploitative (direct) to an exploratory (branched) strategy resembles search strategies in living systems; however, here it emerges in a simple physical system from a combination of global constraints (fluid conservation) and a switch-like local material response. We show that the amount of fluid needed to achieve breakthrough is minimal at the transition, and that there is a trade-off between speed and accuracy in these arborization patterns. Altogether, our study provides an embodied paradigm for fluidic computation driven by a combination of local material response (body) and global boundary conditions (environment).
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2411_10426
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Exploitation-exploration transition in the physics of fluid-driven branching
Tauber, J.
Asnacios, J.
Mahadevan, L.
Soft Condensed Matter
Fluid Dynamics
Self-organized branching structures can emerge spontaneously as interfacial instabilities in both simple and complex fluids, driven by the interplay between bulk material rheology, boundary constraints, and interfacial forcing. In our experiments, injecting dye between a source and a sink in a Hele-Shaw cell filled with a yield-stress fluid reveals an abrupt transition in morphologies as a function of injection rate. Slow injection leads to a direct path connecting the source to the sink, while fast injection leads to a rapid branching morphology that eventually converges to the sink. This shift from an exploitative (direct) to an exploratory (branched) strategy resembles search strategies in living systems; however, here it emerges in a simple physical system from a combination of global constraints (fluid conservation) and a switch-like local material response. We show that the amount of fluid needed to achieve breakthrough is minimal at the transition, and that there is a trade-off between speed and accuracy in these arborization patterns. Altogether, our study provides an embodied paradigm for fluidic computation driven by a combination of local material response (body) and global boundary conditions (environment).
title Exploitation-exploration transition in the physics of fluid-driven branching
topic Soft Condensed Matter
Fluid Dynamics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.10426