Swimming at Low Reynolds Number in Fluids with Odd (Hall) Viscosity

Abstract

We apply the geometric theory of swimming at low Reynolds number to the study of nearly circular swimmers in two-dimensional fluids with non-vanishing Hall, or "odd", viscosity. The Hall viscosity gives an off-diagonal contribution to the fluid stress-tensor, which results in a number of striking effects. In particular, we find that a swimmer whose area is changing will experience a torque proportional to the rate of change of the area, with the constant of proportionality given by the coefficient $\eta^o$ of odd viscosity. After working out the general theory of swimming in fluids with Hall viscosity for a class of simple swimmers, we give a number of example swimming strokes which clearly demonstrate the differences between swimming in a fluid with conventional viscosity and a fluid which also has a Hall viscosity. A number of more technical results, including a proof of the torque-area relation for swimmers of more general shape, are explained in a set of appendices.