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Updated: Nov 21, 2025
11:51
Visually Based Characterization of the Incipient Particle Motion in Regular Substrates: From Laminar to Turbulent Conditions
Published on: February 22, 2018
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Active Brownian particles moving through disordered landscapes
Kristian S Olsen1, Luiza Angheluta1, Eirik G Flekkøy1
1PoreLab, Department of Physics, University of Oslo, Blindern, 0316 Oslo, Norway. k.s.olsen@fys.uio.no.
Soft Matter
|January 14, 2021
Summary
Active Brownian particles with internal energy depots exhibit normal or anomalous dispersion in disordered media, depending on drag conditions. In strong disorder, self-propulsion speed effectively fluctuates, impacting particle dynamics.
Area of Science:
- Statistical Physics
- Soft Matter Physics
- Complex Systems
Background:
- Disordered media are common in biological and synthetic active matter systems.
- Understanding particle dynamics in such environments is crucial for various applications, including microfluidics.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the behavior of active Brownian particles with internal energy depots in quenched frictional disorder.
- To analyze the impact of fast internal relaxation and strong disorder on particle displacement and speed.
Main Methods:
- Analytical calculations of mean-square displacement under fast-relaxation approximation.
- Numerical integration of energy depot dynamics.
- Analysis of particle behavior in the strongly disordered limit.
Main Results:
- Analytical predictions for mean-square displacement show good agreement with numerical simulations.
- Normal dispersion observed for bounded drag coefficients; anomalous dispersion for power-law drag dependencies.
- Self-propulsion speed behaves as a fluctuating quantity in strongly disordered media.
Conclusions:
- The study provides a theoretical framework for active Brownian particle dynamics in disordered media.
- Drag coefficient characteristics significantly influence particle dispersion patterns.
- The concept of fluctuating self-propulsion speed is validated in the strong disorder regime.
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