To turn or not to turn?
- Bacteria typically swim in straight runs, interruped by sudden turning events. In particular, some species are limited to a reversal in the swimming direction as the only turning maneuver at their disposal. In a recent article, Grossmann et al (2016 New J. Phys. 18 043009) introduce a theoretical framework to analyze the diffusive properties of active particles following this type of run-and-reverse pattern. Based on a stochastic clock model to mimic the regulatory pathway that triggers reversal events, they show that a run-and-reverse swimmer can optimize its diffusive spreading by tuning the reversal rate according to the level of rotational noise. With their approach, they open up promising new perspectives of how to incorporate the dynamics of intracellular signaling into coarse-grained active particle descriptions.
| Author details: | Carsten BetaORCiDGND |
|---|---|
| DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1088/1367-2630/18/5/051003 |
| ISSN: | 1367-2630 |
| Title of parent work (English): | NEW JOURNAL OF PHYSICS |
| Publisher: | IOP Publ. Ltd. |
| Place of publishing: | Bristol |
| Publication type: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Year of first publication: | 2016 |
| Publication year: | 2016 |
| Release date: | 2020/03/22 |
| Tag: | bacterial swimming; diffusion; random walks; stochastic models |
| Volume: | 18 |
| Number of pages: | 3 |
| First page: | 1 |
| Last Page: | 17 |
| Organizational units: | Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Fakultät / Institut für Physik und Astronomie |
| Peer review: | Referiert |
