Optimal search strategies of run-and-tumble walks

Jean-François Rupprecht, Olivier Bénichou, and Raphael Voituriez
Phys. Rev. E 94, 012117 – Published 14 July 2016

Abstract

The run-and-tumble walk, consisting of randomly reoriented ballistic excursions, models phenomena ranging from gas kinetics to bacteria motility. We evaluate the mean time required for this walk to find a fixed target within a two- or three-dimensional spherical confinement. We find that the mean search time admits a minimum as a function of the mean run duration for various types of boundary conditions and run duration distributions (exponential, power-law, deterministic). Our result stands in sharp contrast to the pure ballistic motion, which is predicted to be the optimal search strategy in the case of Poisson-distributed targets.

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  • Received 11 March 2016
  • Revised 1 June 2016

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.94.012117

©2016 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Physics of Living Systems

Authors & Affiliations

Jean-François Rupprecht1,2,*, Olivier Bénichou1, and Raphael Voituriez1,3

  • 1Sorbonne Universités, UPMC Université Paris 06, UMR 7600, Laboratoire de Physique Théorique de la Matière Condensée, 4 Place Jussieu, Paris, France
  • 2Mechanobiology Institute, National University of Singapore, 5A Engineering Drive 1, 117411, Singapore
  • 3Sorbonne Universités, UPMC Université Paris 06, Laboratoire Jean Perrin, UMR 8237 CNRS/UPMC, 4 Place Jussieu, Paris, France

  • *mbijr@nus.edu.sg

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Issue

Vol. 94, Iss. 1 — July 2016

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