We report on the interactions between internally driven pairs of active rotors in a dual optical tweezer. The active rotor is Bacillus subtilis, a wild-type, gram- positive bacterium that uses flagellar rotation for motility. A pair of bacteria are held at different distances and their respective flagellar rotations are studied through the durations of their approach and retraction from each other. The aim of our work is to investigate the nature of the interactions between two active confined rotors trapped in their pristine form. We find, that the frequency of the rotating flagella decreases in both confined bacteria on approaching each other and increases when retracted from each other. In other words, the flagellar rotations of a bacterium slow down while in the presence of a nearby neighbor and speeds up as the neighbor retreats. Our results show a similar trend as when compared to free swimming bacteria wherein they avoid each other on approach through modulation of their rotating flagella. We investigate through this setup the hydrodynamics mediated coupling between two such active rotors.
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