We investigate the persistence probability $p(t)$ of the position of a Brownian particle with shape asymmetry in two dimensions. The persistence probability is defined as the probability that a stochastic variable has not changed it's sign in the given time interval. We explicitly consider two cases -- diffusion of a free particle and that of harmonically trapped particle. The later is particularly relevant in experiments which uses trapping and tracking techniques to measure the displacements. We provide analytical expressions of $p(t)$ for both the scenarios and show that in the absence of the shape asymmetry the results reduce to the case of an isotropic particle. The analytical expressions of $p(t)$ are further validated against numerical simulation of the underlying overdamped dynamics. We also illustrate that $p(t)$ can be a measure to determine the shape asymmetry of a colloid and the translational and rotational diffusivities can be estimated from the measured persistence probability. The advantage of this method is that it does not require the tracking of the orientation of the particle.
We study the Brownian motion of ellipsoidal particles lying on an agitated granular bath composed of magnetic particles. We quantify the mobility of different floating ellipsoidal particles using the mean square displacement and the mean square angular displacement, and relate the diffusion coefficients to the bath particle motion. In terms of the particle major radius $R$, we find the translational diffusion coefficient scales roughly as $1/R^2$ and the rotational diffusion coefficient scales as roughly $1/R^4$; this is consistent with the assumption that diffusion arises from random kicks of…
We calculate the effective long-term convective velocity and dispersive motion of an ellipsoidal Brownian particle in three dimensions when it is subjected to a constant external force. This long-term motion results as a "net" average behavior from the particle rotation and translation on short time scales. Accordingly, we apply a systematic multi-scale technique to derive the effective equations of motion valid on long times. We verify our theoretical results by comparing them to numerical simulations.
We present a simple method to control the position of ellipsoidal magnetic particles in microchannel Poiseuille flow using a static uniform magnetic field. The magnetic field is utilized to pin the particle orientation, and the hydrodynamic interactions between ellipsoids and channel walls allow control of the transverse position of the particles. We employ a far-field hydrodynamic theory and simulations using the boundary element method and Brownian dynamics to show how magnetic particles can be focussed and segregated by size and shape. This is of importance for particle manipulation in lab-…
Recent experimental studies have demonstrated that cellular motion can be directed by topographical gradients, such as those resulting from spatial variations in the features of a micropatterned substrate. This phenomenon, known as topotaxis, is especially prominent among cells persistently crawling within a spatially varying distribution of cell-sized obstacles. In this article we introduce a toy model of topotaxis based on active Brownian particles constrained to move in a lattice of obstacles, with space-dependent lattice spacing. Using numerical simulations and analytical arguments, we dem…
Active Brownian motion with intermittent direction reversals are common in a class of bacteria like {\it Myxococcus xanthus} and {\it Pseudomonas putida}. We show that, for such a motion in two dimensions, the presence of the two time scales set by the rotational diffusion constant $D_R$ and the reversal rate $γ$ gives rise to four distinct dynamical regimes: (I) $t\ll \min (γ^{-1}, D_R^{-1}),$ (II) $γ^{-1}\ll t\ll D_R^{-1}$, (III) $D_R^{-1} \ll t \ll γ^{-1}$, and (IV) $t\gg \max (γ^{-1}$, $D_R^{-1})$, showing distinct behaviors. We characterize these behaviors by analytically computing the po…
We present a mode-coupling theory (MCT) for the high-density dynamics of two-dimensional spherical active Brownian particles (ABP). The theory is based on the integration-through-transients (ITT) formalism and hence provides a starting point for the calculation of non-equilibrium averages in active-Brownian particle systems. The ABP are characterized by a self-propulsion velocity $v_0$, and by their translational and rotational diffusion coefficients, $D_t$ and $D_r$. The theory treats both the translational and the orientational degrees of freedom of ABP explicitly. This allows to study the e…
Tracer particles immersed in suspensions of biological microswimmers such as E. coli or C. reinhardtii display phenomena unseen in conventional equilibrium systems, including strongly enhanced diffusivity relative to the Brownian value and non-Gaussian displacement statistics. In dilute, 3-dimensional suspensions, these phenomena have typically been explained by the hydrodynamic advection of point tracers by isolated microswimmers, while, at higher concentrations, correlations between pusher microswimmers such as E. coli can increase the effective diffusivity even further. Anisotropic tracers …
We consider the solid or hexatic non-equilibrium phases of an interacting two-dimensional system of Active Brownian Particles at high density and investigate numerically and theoretically the properties of the velocity distribution function and the associated kinetic temperature. We obtain approximate analytical predictions for the shape of the velocity distribution and find a transition from a Mexican-hat-like to a Gaussian-like distribution as the persistence time of the active force changes from the small to the large persistence regime. Through a detailed numerical and theoretical analysis…
We study the glassy dynamics taking place in dense assemblies of athermal active particles that are driven solely by a nonequilibrium self-propulsion mechanism. Active forces are modeled as an Ornstein-Uhlenbeck stochastic process, characterized by a persistence time and an effective temperature, and particles interact via a Lennard-Jones potential that yields well-studied glassy behavior in the Brownian limit, obtained as the persistence time vanishes. By increasing the persistence time, the system departs more strongly from thermal equilibrium and we provide a comprehensive numerical analysi…
In this work, we report a new method to simulate active Brownian particles (ABPs) in molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. Immersed in a fluid, each ABP consists of a head particle and a spherical phantom region of fluid where the flagellum of a microswimmer takes effect. The orientation of the active particle is governed by a stochastic dynamics, with the orientational persistence time determined by the rotational diffusivity. To hydrodynamically drive the active particle as a pusher, a pair of active forces are exerted on the head particle and the phantom fluid region respectively. The active…
We present a method for the evaluation of time-dependent linear response functions for systems of active Ornstein-Uhlenbeck particles from unperturbed simulations. The method is inspired by the Malliavin weights sampling method proposed by Warren and Allen [Phys. Rev. Lett. 109, 250601 (2012)] for systems of Brownian particles. We illustrate our method by evaluating a linear response function for a single active particle in an external harmonic potential. As an application, we calculate the time-dependent mobility function and an effective temperature, defined through the Einstein relation bet…
By working in the small persistence time limit, we determine the steady-state distribution of an Active Ornstein Uhlenbeck Particle (AOUP) experiencing, in addition to self-propulsion, a Gaussian white noise modelling a bath at temperature T. This allows us to derive analytical formulas for three quantities: the spatial density of a confined particle, the current induced by an asymmetric periodic potential and the entropy production rate. These formulas disentangle the respective roles of the passive and active noises on the steady state of AOUPs, showing that signatures of non-equilibrium can…
We investigate exploration patterns of a microswimmer, modeled as an active Brownian particle, searching for a target region located in a well of an energy landscape and separated from the initial position of the particle by high barriers. We find that the microswimmer can enhance its success rate in finding the target by tuning its activity and its persistence in response to features of the environment. The target-search patterns of active Brownian particles are counterintuitive and display characteristics robust to changes of the energy landscape. On the contrary, the transition rates and tr…
We computationally study the behavior of underdamped active Brownian particles in a sheared channel geometry. Due to their underdamped dynamics, the particles carry momentum a characteristic distance away from the boundary before it is dissipated into the substrate. We correlate this distance with the persistence of particle trajectories, determined jointly by their friction and self-propulsion. Within this characteristic length, we observe new and counterintuitive phenomena stemming from the interplay of activity, interparticle interactions, and the boundary driving. Depending on values of fr…
We investigate a two-dimensional system of active particles confined to a narrow annular domain. Despite the absence of explicit interactions among the velocities or the active forces of different particles, the system displays a transition from a disordered and stuck state to an ordered state of global collective motion where the particles rotate persistently clockwise or anticlockwise. We describe this behavior by introducing a suitable order parameter, the velocity polarization, measuring the global alignment of the particles' velocities along the tangential direction of the ring. We also m…
Biological microswimmers often inhabit a porous or crowded environment such as soil. In order to understand how such a complex environment influences their spreading, we numerically study non-interacting active Brownian particles (ABPs) in a two-dimensional random Lorentz gas. Close to the percolation transition in the Lorentz gas, they perform the same subdiffusive motion as ballistic and diffusive particles. However, due to their persistent motion they reach their long-time dynamics faster than passive particles and also show superdiffusive motion at intermediate times. While above the criti…
The diffusion behavior of an active Brownian particle (ABP) in polymer solutions is studied using Langevin dynamics simulations. We find that the long time diffusion coefficient $D$ can show a non-monotonic dependence on the particle size $R$ if the active force $F_{a}$ is large enough, wherein a bigger particle would diffuse faster than a smaller one which is quite counterintuitive. By analyzing the short time dynamics in comparison to the passive one, we find that such non-trivial dependence results from the competition between persistence motion of the ABP and the length-scale dependent eff…
We study the large deviations of the distribution P(W_τ) of the work associated with the propulsion of individual active brownian particles in a time interval τ, in the region of the phase diagram where macroscopic phase separation takes place. P(W_τ) is characterised by two peaks, associated to particles in the gaseous and in the clusterised phases, and two separate non-convex branches. Accordingly, the generating function of W_τcumulants displays a double singularity. We discuss the origin of such non-convex branches in terms of the peculiar dynamics of the system phases, and the relation be…
Oscillatory Active Brownian Motion: A Minimal Model for Sperm Dynamics
School of Biomedical and Chemical Engineering, Colorado State University（科罗拉多州立大学生物医学与化学工程学院）；Instituto de Biología y Medicina Experimental (IBYME-CONICET)（实验生物学与医学研究所 (IBYME-CONICET)）
Collections of self-propelled particles that move persistently by continuously consuming free energy are a paradigmatic example of active matter. In these systems, unlike Brownian "hot colloids", the breakdown of detailed balance yields a continuous production of entropy at steady state, even for an ideal active gas. We quantify the irreversibility for a non-interacting active particle in two dimensions by treating both conjugated and time-reversed dynamics. By starting with underdamped dynamics, we identify a hidden rate of entropy production required to maintain persistence and prevent the r…
We consider a rigid assembly of two active Brownian particles, forming an active colloidal dimer, in a gradient of activity. We show analytically that depending on the relative orientation of the two particles the active dimer accumulates in regions of either high or low activity, corresponding to, respectively, chemotaxis and antichemotaxis. Certain active dimers show both chemotactic and antichemotactic behavior, depending on the strength of the activity. Our coarse-grained Fokker-Planck approach yields an effective potential, which we use to construct a nonequilibrium phase diagram that cla…
Prior studies have shown that low symmetry particles such as micro-boomerangs exhibit behaviour of Brownian motion rather different from that of high symmetry particles because convenient tracking points (TPs) are usually inconsistent with the center of hydrodynamic stress (CoH) where the translational and rotational motions are decoupled. In this paper we study the effects of the translation-rotation coupling on the displacement probability distribution functions (PDFs) of the boomerang colloid particles with symmetric arms. By tracking the motions of different points on the particle symmetry…
