Run-and-tumble particles in two dimensions: Marginal position distributions

Abstract

We study a set of run-and-tumble particle (RTP) dynamics in two spatial dimensions. In the first case of the orientation θ of the particle can assume a set of n possible discrete values, while in the second case θ is a continuous variable. We calculate exactly the marginal position distributions for n=3,4 and the continuous case and show that in all cases the RTP shows a crossover from a ballistic to diffusive regime. The ballistic regime is a typical signature of the active nature of the systems and is characterized by nontrivial position distributions which depend on the specific model. We also show that the signature of activity at long times can be found in the atypical fluctuations, which we also characterize by computing the large deviation functions explicitly.

Topics & Concepts