Instability and self-propulsion of active droplets along a wall

Abstract: Active droplets can swim spontaneously in viscous flows as a result of the non-linear convective transport of a chemical solute produced at their surface by the Marangoni and/or phoretic flows generated by this solute's inhomogeneous distribution, provided the ratio of convective-to-diffusive solute transport, or P\'eclet number $\mbox{Pe}$ is large enough. As the result of their net buoyancy, active drops typically evolve at a small finite distance $d$ from rigid boundaries. Yet, existing models systematically focus on unbounded flows, ignoring the effect of the wall proximity on the intrisically-nonlinear nature of their propulsion mechanism. In contrast, we obtain here a critical insight on the propulsion of active drops near walls by analysing their stability to non-axisymmetric perturbations and the resulting emergence of self-propulsion along the wall with no limiting assumption on the wall-distance $d$. Dipolar or quadrupolar axisymmetric (levitating) base states are identified depending on $d$ and $\mbox{Pe}$. Perhaps counter-intuitively, a reduction in the drop-wall separation $d$ is observed to destabilize these modes and to promote self-propulsion, as a result from the confinement-induced localisation of the chemical gradients driving the motion. In addition, quadrupolar states are more unstable than their dipolar counterparts due to the redistribution of the chemical perturbation by the base flow, favouring the emergence of stronger slip forcing on the drop surface.