A plethora of active matter models exist that describe the behavior of self-propelled particles (or swimmers), both with and without hydrodynamics. However, there are few studies that consider shape-anisotropic swimmers and include hydrodynamic interactions. Here, we introduce a simple method to simulate self-propelled colloids interacting hydrodynamically in a viscous medium using the lattice-Boltzmann technique. Our model is based on raspberry-type viscous coupling and a force/counter-force formalism, which ensures that the system is force free. We consider several anisotropic shapes and characterize their hydrodynamic multipolar flow field. We demonstrate that shape-anisotropy can lead to the presence of a strong quadrupole and octupole moments, in addition to the principle dipole moment. The ability to simulate and characterize these higher-order moments will prove crucial for understanding the behavior of model swimmers in confining geometries.
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The absence of source terms is specific to the LB force/counter-force raspberry swimmer. That is, there are no sources or sinks of the LB fluid. However, other models such as the squirmer48,49 can have source-dipole contributions that must be considered in fitting the data.