English

Ideal circle microswimmers in crowded media

Biological Physics 2020-03-17 v1 Soft Condensed Matter

Abstract

Microswimmers are exposed in nature to crowded environments and their transport properties depend in a subtle way on the interaction with obstacles. Here, we investigate a model for a single ideal circle swimmer exploring a two-dimensional disordered array of impenetrable obstacles. The microswimmer moves on circular orbits in the freely accessible space and follows the surface of an obstacle for a certain time upon collision. Depending on the obstacle density and the radius of the circular orbits, the microswimmer displays either long-range transport or is localized in a finite region. We show that there are transitions from two localized states to a diffusive state each driven by an underlying static percolation transition. We determine the non-equilibrium state diagram and calculate the mean-square displacements and diffusivities by computer simulations. Close to the transition lines transport becomes subdiffusive which is rationalized as a dynamic critical phenomenon.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2003.07102,
  title  = {Ideal circle microswimmers in crowded media},
  author = {Oleksandr Chepizhko and Thomas Franosch},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2003.07102},
  year   = {2020}
}

Comments

10 pages, 7 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-23T14:15:54.892Z