Rolling spinners on the water surface

Abstract

Angular momentum of spinning bodies leads to their remarkable interactions with fields, waves, fluids, and solids. Orbiting celestial bodies, balls in sports, liquid droplets above a hot plate, nanoparticles in optical fields, and spinning quantum particles exhibit nontrivial rotational dynamics. Here, we report self-guided propulsion of magnetic fast-spinning particles on a liquid surface in the presence of a solid boundary. Above some critical spinning frequency, such particles generate localized 3D vortices and form composite "spinner-vortex" quasiparticles with nontrivial, yet robust dynamics. Such spinner-vortices are attracted and dynamically trapped near the boundaries, propagating along the wall of any shape similarly to "liquid wheels." The propulsion velocity and the distance to the wall are controlled by the angular velocity of the spinner via the balance between the Magnus and wall repulsion forces. Our results offer a new type of surface vehicles and provide a powerful tool to manipulate spinning objects in fluids.