Brownian motion of helical flagella.
We develops a theory of the Brownian motion of a rigid helical object such as bacterial flagella. The statistical properties of the random forces acting on the helical object are discussed and the coefficients of the correlations of the random forces are determined. The averages <z(2)(t)>, <theta(2)(t)> and <z(t)theta(t)> are also calculated where z and theta are the position along and angle around the helix axis respectively. Although the theory is limited to short time interval, direct comparison with experiment is possible by using the recently developed cinematography technique.
Hoshikawa
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Ichimura College, Uchikubo, Inuyama, Aichi-Pref. 484, Japan.
Saito
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