title: Search along persistent random walks.
abstract: Optimal search strategies and their implementations in biological systems are a subject of active research. Here we study a search problem which is motivated by the hunt of sperm cells for the egg. We ask for the probability for an active swimmer to find a target under the condition that the swimmer starts at a certain distance from the target. We find that success probability is maximal for a certain level of fluctuations characterized by the persistence length of the swimming path of the swimmer. We derive a scaling law for the optimal persistence length as a function of the initial target distance and search time by mapping the search on a polymer physics problem.
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems, 01187 Dresden, Germany.
authors.forename: Benjamin M
authors.initials: BM
authors.lastname: Friedrich
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D003198:Computer Simulation; D005260:Female; D008297:Male; D008954:Models, Biological; D010063:Ovum / Q000502:physiology; D011336:Probability; D013084:Sperm-Ovum Interactions / Q000502:physiology; D013094:Spermatozoa / Q000502:physiology