TY - JOUR A1 - Bodrova, Anna S. A1 - Chechkin, Aleksei V. A1 - Cherstvy, Andrey G. A1 - Metzler, Ralf T1 - Ultraslow scaled Brownian motion JF - New journal of physics : the open-access journal for physics N2 - We define and study in detail utraslow scaled Brownian motion (USBM) characterized by a time dependent diffusion coefficient of the form D(t) similar or equal to 1/t. For unconfined motion the mean squared displacement (MSD) of USBM exhibits an ultraslow, logarithmic growth as function of time, in contrast to the conventional scaled Brownian motion. In a harmonic potential the MSD of USBM does not saturate but asymptotically decays inverse-proportionally to time, reflecting the highly non-stationary character of the process. We show that the process is weakly non-ergodic in the sense that the time averaged MSD does not converge to the regular MSD even at long times, and for unconfined motion combines a linear lag time dependence with a logarithmic term. The weakly non-ergodic behaviour is quantified in terms of the ergodicity breaking parameter. The USBM process is also shown to be ageing: observables of the system depend on the time gap between initiation of the test particle and start of the measurement of its motion. Our analytical results are shown to agree excellently with extensive computer simulations. KW - anomalous diffusion KW - stochastic processes KW - ageing Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1088/1367-2630/17/6/063038 SN - 1367-2630 VL - 17 PB - IOP Publ. Ltd. CY - Bristol ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Cherstvy, Andrey G. A1 - Chechkin, Aleksei V. A1 - Metzler, Ralf T1 - Particle invasion, survival, and non-ergodicity in 2D diffusion processes with space-dependent diffusivity JF - Soft matter N2 - We study the thermal Markovian diffusion of tracer particles in a 2D medium with spatially varying diffusivity D(r), mimicking recently measured, heterogeneous maps of the apparent diffusion coefficient in biological cells. For this heterogeneous diffusion process (HDP) we analyse the mean squared displacement (MSD) of the tracer particles, the time averaged MSD, the spatial probability density function, and the first passage time dynamics from the cell boundary to the nucleus. Moreover we examine the non-ergodic properties of this process which are important for the correct physical interpretation of time averages of observables obtained from single particle tracking experiments. From extensive computer simulations of the 2D stochastic Langevin equation we present an in-depth study of this HDP. In particular, we find that the MSDs along the radial and azimuthal directions in a circular domain obey anomalous and Brownian scaling, respectively. We demonstrate that the time averaged MSD stays linear as a function of the lag time and the system thus reveals a weak ergodicity breaking. Our results will enable one to rationalise the diffusive motion of larger tracer particles such as viruses or submicron beads in biological cells. KW - anomalous diffusion KW - intracellular-transport KW - adenoassociated virus KW - infection pathway KW - escherichia-coli KW - endosomal escape KW - living cells KW - trafficking KW - cytoplasm KW - models Y1 - 2014 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1039/c3sm52846d SN - 2046-2069 VL - 2014 IS - 10 SP - 1591 EP - 1601 PB - Royal Society of Chemistry ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Cherstvy, Andrey G. A1 - Chechkin, Aleksei V. A1 - Metzler, Ralf T1 - Ageing and confinement in non-ergodic heterogeneous diffusion processes JF - Journal of physics : A, Mathematical and theoretical N2 - We study the effects of ageing-the time delay between initiation of the physical process at t = 0 and start of observation at some time t(a) > 0-and spatial confinement on the properties of heterogeneous diffusion processes (HDPs) with deterministic power-law space-dependent diffusivities, D(x) = D-0 vertical bar x vertical bar(alpha). From analysis of the ensemble and time averaged mean squared displacements and the ergodicity breaking parameter quantifying the inherent degree of irreproducibility of individual realizations of the HDP we obtain striking similarities to ageing subdiffusive continuous time random walks with scale-free waiting time distributions. We also explore how both processes can be distinguished. For confined HDPs we study the long-time saturation of the ensemble and time averaged particle displacements as well as the magnitude of the inherent scatter of time averaged displacements and contrast the outcomes to the results known for other anomalous diffusion processes under confinement. KW - stochastic processes KW - anomalous diffusion KW - ageing KW - weak ergodicity breaking Y1 - 2014 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1088/1751-8113/47/48/485002 SN - 1751-8113 SN - 1751-8121 VL - 47 IS - 48 PB - IOP Publ. Ltd. CY - Bristol ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Cherstvy, Andrey G. A1 - Safdari, Hadiseh A1 - Metzler, Ralf T1 - Anomalous diffusion, nonergodicity, and ageing for exponentially and logarithmically time-dependent diffusivity BT - striking differences for massive versus massless particles JF - Journal of physics. D, Applied physics N2 - We investigate a diffusion process with a time-dependent diffusion coefficient, both exponentially increasing and decreasing in time, D(t)=D-0(e +/- 2 alpha t). For this (hypothetical) nonstationary diffusion process we compute-both analytically and from extensive stochastic simulations-the behavior of the ensemble- and time-averaged mean-squared displacements (MSDs) of the particles, both in the over- and underdamped limits. Simple asymptotic relations derived for the short- and long-time behaviors are shown to be in excellent agreement with the results of simulations. The diffusive characteristics in the presence of ageing are also considered, with dramatic differences of the over- versus underdamped regime. Our results for D(t)=D-0(e +/- 2 alpha t) extend and generalize the class of diffusive systems obeying scaled Brownian motion featuring a power-law-like variation of the diffusivity with time, D(t) similar to t(alpha-1). We also examine the logarithmically increasing diffusivity, D(t)=D(0)log[t/tau(0)], as another fundamental functional dependence (in addition to the power-law and exponential) and as an example of diffusivity slowly varying in time. One of the main conclusions is that the behavior of the massive particles is predominantly ergodic, while weak ergodicity breaking is repeatedly found for the time-dependent diffusion of the massless particles at short times. The latter manifests itself in the nonequivalence of the (both nonaged and aged) MSD and the mean time-averaged MSD. The current findings are potentially applicable to a class of physical systems out of thermal equilibrium where a rapid increase or decrease of the particles' diffusivity is inherently realized. One biological system potentially featuring all three types of time-dependent diffusion (power-law-like, exponential, and logarithmic) is water diffusion in the brain tissues, as we thoroughly discuss in the end. KW - anomalous diffusion KW - scaled Brownian motion KW - stochastic processes KW - nonstationary diffusivity KW - water diffusion in the brain KW - nonergodicity Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6463/abdff0 SN - 0022-3727 SN - 1361-6463 VL - 54 IS - 19 PB - IOP Publ. Ltd. CY - Bristol ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Ghosh, Surya K. A1 - Cherstvy, Andrey G. A1 - Grebenkov, Denis S. A1 - Metzler, Ralf T1 - Anomalous, non-Gaussian tracer diffusion in crowded two-dimensional environments JF - NEW JOURNAL OF PHYSICS N2 - A topic of intense current investigation pursues the question of how the highly crowded environment of biological cells affects the dynamic properties of passively diffusing particles. Motivated by recent experiments we report results of extensive simulations of the motion of a finite sized tracer particle in a heterogeneously crowded environment made up of quenched distributions of monodisperse crowders of varying sizes in finite circular two-dimensional domains. For given spatial distributions of monodisperse crowders we demonstrate how anomalous diffusion with strongly non-Gaussian features arises in this model system. We investigate both biologically relevant situations of particles released either at the surface of an inner domain or at the outer boundary, exhibiting distinctly different features of the observed anomalous diffusion for heterogeneous distributions of crowders. Specifically we reveal an asymmetric spreading of tracers even at moderate crowding. In addition to the mean squared displacement (MSD) and local diffusion exponent we investigate the magnitude and the amplitude scatter of the time averaged MSD of individual tracer trajectories, the non-Gaussianity parameter, and the van Hove correlation function. We also quantify how the average tracer diffusivity varies with the position in the domain with a heterogeneous radial distribution of crowders and examine the behaviour of the survival probability and the dynamics of the tracer survival probability. Inter alia, the systems we investigate are related to the passive transport of lipid molecules and proteins in two-dimensional crowded membranes or the motion in colloidal solutions or emulsions in effectively two-dimensional geometries, as well as inside supercrowded, surface adhered cells. KW - anomalous diffusion KW - crowded fluids KW - stochastic processes Y1 - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1088/1367-2630/18/1/013027 SN - 1367-2630 VL - 18 PB - IOP Publ. Ltd. CY - Bristol ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Ghosh, Surya K. A1 - Cherstvy, Andrey G. A1 - Metzler, Ralf ED - Metzler, Ralf T1 - Non-universal tracer diffusion in crowded media of non-inert obstacles JF - Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics N2 - We study the diffusion of a tracer particle, which moves in continuum space between a lattice of excluded volume, immobile non-inert obstacles. In particular, we analyse how the strength of the tracer–obstacle interactions and the volume occupancy of the crowders alter the diffusive motion of the tracer. From the details of partitioning of the tracer diffusion modes between trapping states when bound to obstacles and bulk diffusion, we examine the degree of localisation of the tracer in the lattice of crowders. We study the properties of the tracer diffusion in terms of the ensemble and time averaged mean squared displacements, the trapping time distributions, the amplitude variation of the time averaged mean squared displacements, and the non-Gaussianity parameter of the diffusing tracer. We conclude that tracer–obstacle adsorption and binding triggers a transient anomalous diffusion. From a very narrow spread of recorded individual time averaged trajectories we exclude continuous type random walk processes as the underlying physical model of the tracer diffusion in our system. For moderate tracer–crowder attraction the motion is found to be fully ergodic, while at stronger attraction strength a transient disparity between ensemble and time averaged mean squared displacements occurs. We also put our results into perspective with findings from experimental single-particle tracking and simulations of the diffusion of tagged tracers in dense crowded suspensions. Our results have implications for the diffusion, transport, and spreading of chemical components in highly crowded environments inside living cells and other structured liquids. KW - fluorescence correlation spectroscopy KW - single-particle tracking KW - anomalous diffusion KW - living cells KW - physiological consequences KW - langevin equation KW - infection pathway KW - excluded volume KW - brownian-motion KW - random-walks Y1 - 2014 SN - 1463-9076 VL - 3 IS - 17 SP - 1847 EP - 1858 PB - The Royal Society of Chemistry CY - Cambridge ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Metzler, Ralf A1 - Cherstvy, Andrey G. A1 - Chechkin, Aleksei V. A1 - Bodrova, Anna S. T1 - Ultraslow scaled Brownian motion JF - New journal of physics : the open-access journal for physics N2 - We define and study in detail utraslow scaled Brownian motion (USBM) characterized by a time dependent diffusion coefficient of the form . For unconfined motion the mean squared displacement (MSD) of USBM exhibits an ultraslow, logarithmic growth as function of time, in contrast to the conventional scaled Brownian motion. In a harmonic potential the MSD of USBM does not saturate but asymptotically decays inverse-proportionally to time, reflecting the highly non-stationary character of the process. We show that the process is weakly non-ergodic in the sense that the time averaged MSD does not converge to the regular MSD even at long times, and for unconfined motion combines a linear lag time dependence with a logarithmic term. The weakly non-ergodic behaviour is quantified in terms of the ergodicity breaking parameter. The USBM process is also shown to be ageing: observables of the system depend on the time gap between initiation of the test particle and start of the measurement of its motion. Our analytical results are shown to agree excellently with extensive computer simulations. KW - anomalous diffusion KW - stochastic processes KW - ageing Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1088/1367-2630/17/6/063038 SN - 1367-2630 VL - 17 IS - 063038 PB - Dt. Physikalische Ges., IOP CY - Bad Honnef, London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Safdari, Hadiseh A1 - Cherstvy, Andrey G. A1 - Chechkin, Aleksei V. A1 - Thiel, Felix A1 - Sokolov, Igor M. A1 - Metzler, Ralf T1 - Quantifying the non-ergodicity of scaled Brownian motion JF - Journal of physics : A, Mathematical and theoretical N2 - We examine the non-ergodic properties of scaled Brownian motion (SBM), a non-stationary stochastic process with a time dependent diffusivity of the form D(t) similar or equal to t(alpha-1). We compute the ergodicity breaking parameter EB in the entire range of scaling exponents a, both analytically and via extensive computer simulations of the stochastic Langevin equation. We demonstrate that in the limit of long trajectory lengths T and short lag times Delta the EB parameter as function of the scaling exponent a has no divergence at alpha - 1/2 and present the asymptotes for EB in different limits. We generalize the analytical and simulations results for the time averaged and ergodic properties of SBM in the presence of ageing, that is, when the observation of the system starts only a finite time span after its initiation. The approach developed here for the calculation of the higher time averaged moments of the particle displacement can be applied to derive the ergodic properties of other stochastic processes such as fractional Brownian motion. KW - scaled Brownian motion KW - anomalous diffusion KW - ageing Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1088/1751-8113/48/37/375002 SN - 1751-8113 SN - 1751-8121 VL - 48 IS - 37 PB - IOP Publ. Ltd. CY - Bristol ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Shin, Jaeoh A1 - Cherstvy, Andrey G. A1 - Metzler, Ralf ED - Metzler, Ralf T1 - Kinetics of polymer looping with macromolecular crowding: effects of volume fraction and crowder size JF - Soft Matter N2 - The looping of polymers such as DNA is a fundamental process in the molecular biology of living cells, whose interior is characterised by a high degree of molecular crowding. We here investigate in detail the looping dynamics of flexible polymer chains in the presence of different degrees of crowding. From the analysis of the looping–unlooping rates and the looping probabilities of the chain ends we show that the presence of small crowders typically slows down the chain dynamics but larger crowders may in fact facilitate the looping. We rationalise these non-trivial and often counterintuitive effects of the crowder size on the looping kinetics in terms of an effective solution viscosity and standard excluded volume. It is shown that for small crowders the effect of an increased viscosity dominates, while for big crowders we argue that confinement effects (caging) prevail. The tradeoff between both trends can thus result in the impediment or facilitation of polymer looping, depending on the crowder size. We also examine how the crowding volume fraction, chain length, and the attraction strength of the contact groups of the polymer chain affect the looping kinetics and hairpin formation dynamics. Our results are relevant for DNA looping in the absence and presence of protein mediation, DNA hairpin formation, RNA folding, and the folding of polypeptide chains under biologically relevant high-crowding conditions. KW - gene-regulation kinetics KW - physiological consequences KW - spatial-organization KW - anomalous diffusion KW - folding kinetics KW - living cells KW - dna coiling KW - in-vitro KW - dynamics KW - mixtures Y1 - 2014 SN - 1744-683X SP - 472 EP - 488 PB - The Royal Society of Chemistry CY - Cambridge ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Shin, Jaeoh A1 - Cherstvy, Andrey G. A1 - Metzler, Ralf T1 - Self-subdiffusion in solutions of star-shaped crowders: non-monotonic effects of inter-particle interactions JF - New journal of physics : the open-access journal for physics N2 - We examine by extensive computer simulations the self-diffusion of anisotropic star-like particles in crowded two-dimensional solutions. We investigate the implications of the area coverage fraction phi of the crowders and the crowder-crowder adhesion properties on the regime of transient anomalous diffusion. We systematically compute the mean squared displacement (MSD) of the particles, their time averaged MSD, and the effective diffusion coefficient. The diffusion is ergodic in the limit of long traces, such that the mean time averaged MSD converges towards the ensemble averaged MSD, and features a small residual amplitude spread of the time averaged MSD from individual trajectories. At intermediate time scales, we quantify the anomalous diffusion in the system. Also, we show that the translational-but not rotational-diffusivity of the particles Dis a nonmonotonic function of the attraction strength between them. Both diffusion coefficients decrease as the power law D(phi) similar to (1 - phi/phi*)(2 ... 2.4) with the area fraction phi occupied by the crowders and the critical value phi*. Our results might be applicable to rationalising the experimental observations of non-Brownian diffusion for a number of standard macromolecular crowders used in vitro to mimic the cytoplasmic conditions of living cells. KW - anomalous diffusion KW - crowded fluids KW - stochastic processes Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1088/1367-2630/17/11/113028 SN - 1367-2630 VL - 17 PB - IOP Publ. Ltd. CY - Bristol ER -