1
|
Zanovello L, Löffler RJG, Caraglio M, Franosch T, Hanczyc MM, Faccioli P. Survival strategies of artificial active agents. Sci Rep 2023; 13:5616. [PMID: 37024516 PMCID: PMC10079664 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-32267-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/30/2022] [Accepted: 03/24/2023] [Indexed: 04/08/2023] Open
Abstract
Artificial cells can be engineered to display dynamics sharing remarkable features in common with the survival behavior of living organisms. In particular, such active systems can respond to stimuli provided by the environment and undertake specific displacements to remain out of equilibrium, e.g. by moving towards regions with higher fuel concentration. In spite of the intense experimental activity aiming at investigating this fascinating behavior, a rigorous definition and characterization of such "survival strategies" from a statistical physics perspective is still missing. In this work, we take a first step in this direction by adapting and applying to active systems the theoretical framework of Transition Path Theory, which was originally introduced to investigate rare thermally activated transitions in passive systems. We perform experiments on camphor disks navigating Petri dishes and perform simulations in the paradigmatic active Brownian particle model to show how the notions of transition probability density and committor function provide the pivotal concepts to identify survival strategies, improve modeling, and obtain and validate experimentally testable predictions. The definition of survival in these artificial systems paves the way to move beyond simple observation and to formally characterize, design and predict complex life-like behaviors.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Luigi Zanovello
- Physics Department, University of Trento, Via Sommarive 14, Povo, Trento, 38123, Italy
- Institut für Theoretische Physik, Universität Innsbruck, Technikerstraße 21A, 6020, Innsbruck, Austria
| | - Richard J G Löffler
- Department of Cellular, Computational and Integrative Biology (CIBIO), University of Trento, Via Sommarive 9, Povo, Trento, 38123, Italy
| | - Michele Caraglio
- Institut für Theoretische Physik, Universität Innsbruck, Technikerstraße 21A, 6020, Innsbruck, Austria
| | - Thomas Franosch
- Institut für Theoretische Physik, Universität Innsbruck, Technikerstraße 21A, 6020, Innsbruck, Austria
| | - Martin M Hanczyc
- Department of Cellular, Computational and Integrative Biology (CIBIO), University of Trento, Via Sommarive 9, Povo, Trento, 38123, Italy.
- Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, 87106, USA.
| | - Pietro Faccioli
- Physics Department, University of Trento, Via Sommarive 14, Povo, Trento, 38123, Italy.
- Trento Institute for Fundamental Physics and Applications (INFN-TIFPA), Via Sommarive 14, Povo, Trento, 38123, Italy.
| |
Collapse
|
2
|
Kromer JA, de la Cruz N, Friedrich BM. Chemokinetic Scattering, Trapping, and Avoidance of Active Brownian Particles. PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS 2020; 124:118101. [PMID: 32242704 DOI: 10.1103/physrevlett.124.118101] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/18/2019] [Revised: 12/03/2019] [Accepted: 02/21/2020] [Indexed: 06/11/2023]
Abstract
We present a theory of chemokinetic search agents that regulate directional fluctuations according to distance from a target. A dynamic scattering effect reduces the probability to penetrate regions with high fluctuations and thus reduces search success for agents that respond instantaneously to positional cues. In contrast, agents with internal states that initially suppress chemokinesis can exploit scattering to increase their probability to find the target. Using matched asymptotics between the case of diffusive and ballistic search, we obtain analytic results beyond Fox colored noise approximation.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Justus A Kromer
- Department of Neurosurgery, Stanford University, Palo Alto, California 94304, USA
| | - Noelia de la Cruz
- Department of Physics, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec H3A 2T8, Canada
| | - Benjamin M Friedrich
- cfaed, TU Dresden, 01069 Dresden, Germany
- Institute of Theoretical Physics, TU Dresden, 01069 Dresden, Germany
- Cluster of Excellence Physics of Life, TU Dresden, 01307 Dresden, Germany
| |
Collapse
|
3
|
Borba AD, Domingos JLC, Moraes ECB, Potiguar FQ, Ferreira WP. Controlling the transport of active matter in disordered lattices of asymmetrical obstacles. Phys Rev E 2020; 101:022601. [PMID: 32168671 DOI: 10.1103/physreve.101.022601] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/15/2019] [Accepted: 01/06/2020] [Indexed: 06/10/2023]
Abstract
We investigate the transport of active matter in the presence of a disordered square lattice of asymmetric obstacles, which is built by removing a fraction of them from the initial full lattice. We obtain a spontaneous inversion of the net particle current, compared to the usual sense of such a current as a function of the fraction of removed obstacles and particle density. We observed that the negative current regime is the consequence of trapping of particles among the obstacles which favors that more particles move in the negative current direction. The same reasoning applies to the positive current regime as well. We show a calculation that partially reproduces our numerical results, based on the argument that the mean current is given by the product of the mean speed and the mean number of travelers in each direction; the breakdown of this assumption is responsible for the failure of our calculation to reproduce the initial negative current regime.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- A D Borba
- Departamento de Física, Universidade Federal do Ceará, Caixa Postal 6030, Campus do Pici, 60455-760 Fortaleza, Ceará, Brazil
| | - Jorge L C Domingos
- Departamento de Física, Universidade Federal do Ceará, Caixa Postal 6030, Campus do Pici, 60455-760 Fortaleza, Ceará, Brazil
| | - E C B Moraes
- Instituto Federal de Educação, Ciência e Tecnologia, Coordenação de Ensino Médio, Tucuruí, Pará, Brazil
- Universidade Federal do Pará, Faculdade de Física, ICEN, Av. Augusto Correa, 1, Guamá, 66075-110, Belém, Pará, Brazil
| | - F Q Potiguar
- Universidade Federal do Pará, Faculdade de Física, ICEN, Av. Augusto Correa, 1, Guamá, 66075-110, Belém, Pará, Brazil
| | - W P Ferreira
- Departamento de Física, Universidade Federal do Ceará, Caixa Postal 6030, Campus do Pici, 60455-760 Fortaleza, Ceará, Brazil
| |
Collapse
|
4
|
Reichhardt C, Reichhardt CJO. Clogging and depinning of ballistic active matter systems in disordered media. Phys Rev E 2018; 97:052613. [PMID: 29906960 DOI: 10.1103/physreve.97.052613] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/23/2018] [Indexed: 06/08/2023]
Abstract
We numerically examine ballistic active disks driven through a random obstacle array. Formation of a pinned or clogged state occurs at much lower obstacle densities for the active disks than for passive disks. As a function of obstacle density, we identify several distinct phases including a depinned fluctuating cluster state, a pinned single-cluster or jammed state, a pinned multicluster state, a pinned gel state, and a pinned disordered state. At lower active disk densities, a drifting uniform liquid forms in the absence of obstacles, but when even a small number of obstacles are introduced, the disks organize into a pinned phase-separated cluster state in which clusters nucleate around the obstacles, similar to a wetting phenomenon. We examine how the depinning threshold changes as a function of disk or obstacle density and find a crossover from a collectively pinned cluster state to a disordered plastic depinning transition as a function of increasing obstacle density. We compare this to the behavior of nonballistic active particles and show that as we vary the activity from completely passive to completely ballistic, a clogged phase-separated state appears in both the active and passive limits, while for intermediate activity, a readily flowing liquid state appears and there is an optimal activity level that maximizes the flux through the sample.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- C Reichhardt
- Theoretical Division and Center for Nonlinear Studies, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545, USA
| | - C J O Reichhardt
- Theoretical Division and Center for Nonlinear Studies, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545, USA
| |
Collapse
|