Non-Gaussian displacements in active transport on a carpet of motile cells

Autor: Großmann, Robert, Bort, Lara S., Moldenhawer, Ted, Panah, Setareh Sharifi, Metzler, Ralf, Beta, Carsten
Rok vydání: 2023
Předmět:
Zdroj: Phys. Rev. Lett. 132, 088301 (2024)
Druh dokumentu: Working Paper
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.132.088301
Popis: We study the dynamics of micron-sized particles on a layer of motile cells. This cell carpet acts as an active bath that propels passive tracer particles via direct mechanical contact. The resulting nonequilibrium transport shows a crossover from superdiffusive to normal-diffusive dynamics. The particle displacement distribution is distinctly non-Gaussian even in the limit of long measurement times -- different from typically reported Fickian yet non-Gaussian transport, for which Gaussianity is restored beyond some system-specific correlation time. We obtain the distribution of diffusion coefficients from the experimental data and introduce a model for the displacement distribution that matches the experimentally observed non-Gaussian statistics and argue why similar transport properties are expected for many composite active matter systems.
Databáze: arXiv