Related papers: The Gated Narrow Escape Time for molecular signali…
The escape of particles through a narrow absorbing gate in confined domains is a abundant phenomenon in various systems in physics, chemistry and molecular biophysics. We consider the narrow escape problem in a cellular flow when the two…
The time needed for a particle to exit a confining domain through a small window, called the narrow escape time (NET), is a limiting factor of various processes, such as some biochemical reactions in cells. Obtaining an estimate of the mean…
In noisy environments such as the cell, many processes involve target sites that are often hidden or inactive, and thus not always available for reaction with diffusing entities. To understand reaction kinetics in these situations, we study…
The mean first passage time (MFPT) for a Brownian particle to reach a small target in cellular microdomains is a key parameter for chemical activation. Although asymptotic estimations of the MFPT are available for various geometries, these…
Escape of active agents from metastable states is of great interest in statistical and biological physics. In this study, we investigate the escape of a flexible active ring, composed of active Brownian particles, from a flat attractive…
Cells have evolved efficient strategies to probe their surroundings and navigate through complex environments. From metastatic spread in the body to swimming cells in porous materials, escape through narrow constrictions - a key component…
We experimentally investigate the escape from a metastable state over a fluctuating barrier of a physical system. The system is switching between two states under electronic control of a dichotomous noise. We measure the escape time and its…
Cellular networks are often composed of thin tubules connecting much larger node compartments. These structures serve for active or diffusion transport of proteins. Examples are glial networks in the brain, the endoplasmic reticulum in…
We discuss activated escape from a metastable state of a system driven by a time-periodic force. We show that the escape probabilities can be changed very strongly even by a comparatively weak force. In a broad parameter range, the…
We explore the microstructure and phase behavior of confined soft colloids which can actively switch their interactions at a predefined kinetic rate. For this, we employ a reaction-diffusion approach based on a reactive dynamical…
The time spent by an interacting Brownian molecule inside a bounded microdomain has many applications in cellular biology, because the number of bounds is a quantitative signal, which can initiate a cascade of chemical reactions and thus…
How do single cell fate decisions induced by activation of key signaling proteins above threshold concentrations within a time interval are affected by stochastic fluctuations in biochemical reactions? We address this question using minimal…
The first arrivals among $N$ Brownian particles is ubiquitous in the life sciences, as it often trigger cellular processes from the molecular level. We study here the case where stochastic particles, which represent molecules, proteins or…
The rate-limiting step of some enzymatic reactions is a physical step, i.e. diffusion. The efficiency of such reactions can be improved through an increase in the arrival rate of the substrate molecules, e.g. by a directed passage of…
The first of $N$ identical independently distributed (i.i.d.) Brownian trajectories that arrives to a small target, sets the time scale of activation, which in general is much faster than the arrival to the target of only a single…
We investigate dynamics of activated escape in periodically modulated systems. The trajectories followed in escape form diffusion broadened tubes, which are periodically repeated in time. We show that these tubes can be directly observed…
Activity significantly enhances the escape rate of a Brownian particle over a potential barrier. Whereas constant activity has been extensively studied in the past, little is known about the effect of time-dependent activity on the escape…
How can a microorganism adapt to a variety of environmental conditions despite there exists a limited number of signal transduction machineries? We show that for any growing cells whose gene expression is under stochastic fluctuations,…
To adapt their behaviour in changing environments, cells sense concentrations by binding external ligands to their receptors. However, incorrect ligands may bind nonspecifically to receptors, and when their concentration is large, this…
It is now well established that microswimmers can be sorted or segregated fabricating suitable microfluidic devices or using external fields. A natural question is how these techniques can be employed for dividing swimmers of different…