title: Modeling a self-propelled autochemotactic walker.
abstract: We develop a minimal model for the stochastic dynamics of microorganisms where individuals communicate via autochemotaxis. This means that microorganisms, such as bacteria, amoebae, or cells, follow the gradient of a chemical that they produce themselves to attract or repel each other. A microorganism is represented as a self-propelled particle or walker with constant speed while its velocity direction diffuses on the unit circle. We study the autochemotactic response of a single self-propelled walker whose dynamics is non-Markovian. We show that its long-time dynamics is always diffusive by deriving analytic expressions for its diffusion coefficient in the weak- and strong-coupling case. We confirm our findings by numerical simulations.
authors.affiliation: Institut für Theoretische Physik, Technische Universität Berlin, Hardenbergstraße 36, D-10623 Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Johannes
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Taktikos
authors.forename: Vasily
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Zaburdaev
authors.forename: Holger
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Stark
mesh_terms: D002633:Chemotaxis / Q000502:physiology*; D003198:Computer Simulation; D008954:Models, Biological; D009038:Motion