Active motion of Brownian microorganisms

C.A. CONDAT; G.J. SIBONA

Minneapolis, MI (EE.UU.)

Conferencia; "March Meeting", American Physical Society; 2000

American Physical Society

Recently, Schweitzer, Ebeling and Tilch (SET) introduced a model for the motion of Brownian objects with internal energy depots [F. Schweitzer, W. Ebeling and B. Tilch, Phys. Rev. Lett. 80, 5044 (1998)]. This model can help us to investigate the strategies used by microorganisms to optimize the transformation of nutrient energy into mechanical energy. SET used a Langevin formalism to analyze the effects related to the depot presence. We have derived a Fokker-Planck equation that describes the depot action, obtaining an analytical form for the steady-state moment distribution, and used simulations to obtain time-dependent results. We examine the properties of the mean square speed and of the displacement moments, finding that noise can increase the mechanical efficiency.