title: Optimal search strategies of run-and-tumble walks.
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.
authors: Sorbonne Universités, UPMC Université Paris 06, UMR 7600, Laboratoire de Physique Théorique de la Matière Condensée, 4 Place Jussieu, Paris, France.|Mechanobiology Institute, National University of Singapore, 5A Engineering Drive 1, 117411, Singapore.
authors: Jean-François
authors: JF
authors: Rupprecht
authors: Sorbonne Universités, UPMC Université Paris 06, UMR 7600, Laboratoire de Physique Théorique de la Matière Condensée, 4 Place Jussieu, Paris, France.
authors: Olivier
authors: O
authors: Bénichou
authors: Sorbonne Universités, UPMC Université Paris 06, UMR 7600, Laboratoire de Physique Théorique de la Matière Condensée, 4 Place Jussieu, Paris, France.|Sorbonne Universités, UPMC Université Paris 06, Laboratoire Jean Perrin, UMR 8237 CNRS/UPMC, 4 Place Jussieu, Paris, France.
authors: Raphael
authors: R
authors: Voituriez