English

Run-and-Tumble particle in inhomogeneous media in one dimension

Statistical Mechanics 2020-10-07 v1

Abstract

We investigate the run and tumble particle (RTP), also known as persistent Brownian motion, in one dimension. A telegraphic noise σ(t)\sigma(t) drives the particle which changes between ±1\pm 1 values with some rates. Denoting the rate of flip from 11 to 1-1 as R1R_1 and the converse rate as R2R_2, we consider the position and direction dependent rates of the form R1(x)=(xl)α[γ1 θ(x)+γ2 θ(x)]R_1(x)=\left(\frac{\mid x \mid}{l}\right) ^{\alpha}\left[\gamma_1~\theta(x)+\gamma_2 ~\theta (-x)\right] and R2(x)=(xl)α[γ2 θ(x)+γ1 θ(x)]R_2(x)=\left(\frac{\mid x \mid}{l}\right) ^{\alpha}\left[\gamma_2~\theta(x)+\gamma_1 ~\theta (-x)\right] with α0\alpha \geq 0. For γ1>γ2\gamma_1 >\gamma_2, we find that the particle exhibits a steady-state probability distriution even in an infinite line whose exact form depends on α\alpha. For α=0\alpha =0 and 11, we solve the master equations exactly for arbitrary γ1\gamma_1 and γ2\gamma_2 at large tt. From our explicit expression for time-dependent probability distribution P(x,t)P(x,t) we find that it exponentially relaxes to the steady-state distribution for γ1>γ2\gamma_1 > \gamma_2. On the other hand, for γ1<γ2\gamma_1<\gamma_2, the large tt behaviour of P(x,t)P(x,t) is drastically different than γ1=γ2\gamma_1=\gamma_2 case where the distribution decays as t12t^{-\frac{1}{2}}. Contrary to the latter, detailed balance is not obeyed by the particle even at large tt in the former case. For general α\alpha, we argue that the approach to the steady state in γ1>γ2\gamma_1>\gamma_2 case is exponential which we numerically demonstrate....

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2004.11041,
  title  = {Run-and-Tumble particle in inhomogeneous media in one dimension},
  author = {Prashant Singh and Sanjib Sabhapandit and Anupam Kundu},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2004.11041},
  year   = {2020}
}

Comments

44 pages, 32 figures