First passage of an active particle in the presence of passive crowders.
basic_science · Level V
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- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 32555827.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1039/d0sm00350f.
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Abstract
We experimentally study the stochastic transport of a self-propelled camphor boat, driven by Marangoni forces, through a crowd of passive paper discs floating on water. We analyze the statistics of the first passage times of the active particle to travel from the center of a circular container to its boundary. While the mean times rise monotonically as a function of the covered area fraction φ of the passive paper discs, their fluctuations show a non-monotonic behavior - being higher at low and high value of φ compared to intermediate values. The reason is traced to an interplay of two distinct sources of fluctuations - one intrinsic to the dynamics, while the other due to the crowding.