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Positing the problem of stationary distributions of active particles as third-order differential equation
1Department of Chemistry, Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María, Campus San Joaquin, 8320000 Santiago, Chile.
Abstract:
In this work, we obtain a third-order linear differential equation for stationary distributions of run-and-tumble particles in two dimensions in a harmonic trap. The equation represents the condition j=0, where j is a flux. Since an analogous equation for passive Brownian particles is first-order, a second- and third-order term are features of active motion. In all cases, the solution has a form of a convolution of two distributions: the Gaussian distribution representing the Boltzmann distribution of passive particles, and the beta distribution representing active motion at zero temperature.
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