Work

Effective Dynamics of Microorganisms That Interact with Their Own Trail

Year: 2016

Type: article

Abstract: Like ants, some microorganisms are known to leave trails on surfaces to communicate. We explore how trail-mediated self-interaction could affect the behavior of individual microorganisms when diffusive spreading of the trail is negligible on the time scale of the microorganism using a simple phenomenological model for an actively moving particle and a finite-width trail. The effective dynamics of each microorganism takes on the form of a stochastic integral equation with the trail interaction appearing in the form of short-term memory. For a moderate coupling strength below an emergent critical value, the dynamics exhibits effective diffusion in both orientation and position after a phase of superdiffusive reorientation. We report experimental verification of a seemingly counterintuitive perpendicular alignment mechanism that emerges from the model.

Source: Physical Review Letters

DOI: 10.1103/physrevlett.117.038101

Authors: W. Till Kranz, Anatolij Gelimson, Kun Zhao, Gerard C. L. Wong, Ramin Golestanian

Institutions: University of Oxford, California NanoSystems Institute, University of California, Los Angeles, Tianjin University

Language: English

Topic: Micro and Nano Robotics

Subfield: Condensed Matter Physics

Field: Physics and Astronomy

Domain: Physical Sciences

Open Access status: green

Funders: Human Frontier Science Program, Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, Office of Naval Research

Awards: G3527634666, G3911000074, G8571987533