STUDY OF THE MOTION OF MAGNETOTACTIC BACTERIA

Motion of flagellate bacteria is considered from the point of view of rigid body mechanics. As a general case we consider a flagellate coccu s magnetotactic bacterium swimming in a fluid in the presence of an ex ternal magnetic field. The proposed model generalizes previous approac hes to the problem and allows one to access parameters of the motion t hat can be measured experimentally. The results suggest that the stron g helical pattern observed in typical trajectories of magnetotactic ba cteria can be a biological advantage complementary to magnetic orienta tion. In the particular case of zero magnetic interaction the model de scribes the motion of a non-magnetotactic coccus bacterium swimming in a fluid. Theoretical cal culations based on experimental results are compared with the experimental track obtained by dark field optical mi croscopy.