Related papers: Chemistry in Motion: Tiny Synthetic Motors
Spontaneous directed motion, a hallmark of cell biology, is unusual in classical statistical physics. Here we study, using both numerical and analytical methods, organized motion in models of the cytoskeleton in which constituents are…
Catalytic swimmers have attracted much attention as alternatives to biological systems for examining collective microscopic dynamics and the response to physico-chemical signals. Yet, understanding and predicting even the most fundamental…
Biological and synthetic microswimmers display a wide range of swimming trajectories depending on driving forces and torques. In this paper we consider a simple overdamped model of self-propelled particles with a constant self-propulsion…
Overdamped Brownian motion of a self-propelled particle is studied by solving the Langevin equation analytically. On top of translational and rotational diffusion, in the context of the presented model, the "active" particle is driven along…
Diffusiophoresis is the spontaneous motion of particles under gradients of solutes. In electrolyte-driven diffusiophoresis, the zeta potential of the particles is an important surface property that characterizes diffusiophoretic mobility.…
Along a microtubule, certain active motors propel themselves in one direction whereas others propel themselves in the opposite direction. For example, the cargo transporting motor proteins dynein and kinesin propel themselves towards the…
We study theoretically the effects of spatial confinement on the phoretic motion of a dissolved particle driven by composition gradients generated by chemical reactions of its solvent, which are active only on certain parts of the particle…
We discuss an autonomous motor based on a Brownian particle driven from thermal equilibrium by periodic in time variation of the internal potential through which the particle interacts with molecules of the surrounding thermal bath. We…
We theoretically study the transport properties of self-propelled particles on complex structures, such as motor proteins on filament networks. A general master equation formalism is developed to investigate the persistent motion of…
Dynamics of molecular motor dimers, consisting of rigidly bound particles that move along two parallel lattices and interact with underlying molecular tracks, is investigated theoretically by analyzing discrete-state stochastic…
Having the advantage of being relatively fast and powerful, as well as readily fabricated, spherical bubble-propelled microrobots are particularly well suited for applications such as cargo delivery, micromanipulation, and biological or…
Kinesin and related motor proteins utilize ATP fuel to propel themselves along the external surface of microtubules in a processive and directional fashion. We show that the observed step-like motion is possible through time varying charge…
We discover a new type of nonequilibrium phase transition in a model of chromatin dynamics, which accounts for the coherent motions that have been observed in experiment. The coherent motion is due to the long-range cooperation of molecular…
Janus --or two-sided, charged membranes offer promise as ionic current rectifiers. In such systems, pores consisting of two regions of opposite charge can be used to generate a current from a gradient in salinity. The efficiency of…
The mathematical formulation of the model for molecular movement of single motor proteins driven by cyclic biochemical reactions in an aqueous environment leads to a drifted Brownian motion characterized by coupled diffusion equations. In…
Self-assembly and dynamical properties of Janus nanoparticles have been studied by molecular dynamic simulations. The nanoparticles are modeled as dimers and they are confined between two flat parallel plates to simulate a thin film. One…
Self-propelling active matter relies on the conversion of energy from the undirected, nanoscopic scale to directed, macroscopic motion. One of the challenges in the design of synthetic active matter lies in the control of dynamic states, or…
For natural microswimmers, the interplay of swimming activity and external flow can promote robust motion, e.g. propulsion against ("upstream rheotaxis") or perpendicular to the direction of flow. These effects are generally attributed to…
Many microorganisms, with phytoplankton and zooplankton as prominent examples, display phototactic behaviour, that is, the ability to perform directed motion within a light gradient. Here we experimentally demonstrate that sensing of light…
We consider random walks on quasi one dimensional lattices, as introduced in \cite{FS}. This mathematical setting covers a large class of discrete kinetic models for non-cooperative molecular motors on periodic tracks. We derive general…