title: Spatial heterogeneity can facilitate the target search of self-propelled particles.
abstract: A numerical investigation of the target search dynamics of self-propelled particles (SPPs) in heterogeneous environments is presented in this work. We show that the spatial heterogeneity has a dramatic effect on the target search dynamics of SPPs. The relative magnitude of the self-propulsion length lpand the radius of the circular domain Rcdetermines how the mean search time of SPPs τ depends on the area fraction of fixed obstacles ϕob. For lp< Rc, the target search process is diffusion-dominated so that a monotonic increase in τ with increasing ϕobis observed. For lp> Rc, τ is shown to be a non-monotonic convex function as a function of ϕobdue to the interplay of the distribution-dominated and diffusion-dominated dynamic regimes. Furthermore, at fixed ϕob, τ shows a minimum upon increasing the self-propulsion velocity v0of a SPP of a slow rotational diffusion when it searches for a target at low ϕob, while it decreases monotonically at high ϕob. The present work highlights that the introduction of spatial heterogeneity causes rich dynamic behaviors of a SPP searching for a target, and deepens our understanding of the transport of active matter in heterogeneous media.
authors.affiliation: CAS Key Laboratory of Soft Matter Chemistry, and Department of Polymer Science and Engineering, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui Province 230026, P. R. China. ywcheng@ustc.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Jiajun
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: CAS Key Laboratory of Soft Matter Chemistry, and Department of Polymer Science and Engineering, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui Province 230026, P. R. China. ywcheng@ustc.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Donghua
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: CAS Key Laboratory of Soft Matter Chemistry, and Department of Polymer Science and Engineering, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui Province 230026, P. R. China. ywcheng@ustc.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Baicheng
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Xia
authors.affiliation: CAS Key Laboratory of Soft Matter Chemistry, and Department of Polymer Science and Engineering, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui Province 230026, P. R. China. ywcheng@ustc.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Wancheng
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Yu