Issue |
EPL
Volume 107, Number 2, July 2014
|
|
---|---|---|
Article Number | 20006 | |
Number of page(s) | 6 | |
Section | General | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1209/0295-5075/107/20006 | |
Published online | 17 July 2014 |
Diffusion of tagged particles in a crowded medium
1 Dipartimento di Sistemi e Informatica, Università di Firenze and INFN - Via S. Marta 3, I-50139 Florence, Italy
2 Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia, Università di Firenze, INFN and CSDC - Via Sansone 1, I-50019 Sesto F.no, Italy
3 Université d'Orléans and Centre de Biophysique Moléculaire (CBM), CNRS-UPR 4301 Rue Charles Sadron, F-45071 Orléans, France
4 Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia “G. Galilei”, Università di Padova, CNISM and INFN Via Marzolo 8, I-35131, Padova, Italy
Received: 27 March 2014
Accepted: 23 June 2014
The influence of crowding on the diffusion of tagged particles in a dense medium is investigated in the framework of a mean-field model, derived in the continuum limit from a microscopic stochastic process with exclusion. The probability distribution function of the tagged particles obeys to a nonlinear Smoluchowski equation, where the force and diffusion terms are determined self-consistently by the concentration of crowders in the medium. Transient sub-diffusive or super-diffusive behaviors are observed, depending on the selected initial conditions, that bridge normal diffusion regimes characterized by different diffusion coefficients. These anomalous crossovers originate from the microscopic competition for space and reflect the peculiar form of the non-homogeneous force term in the governing equation. Our results strongly warn against the overly simplistic identification of crowding with anomalous transport tout court.
PACS: 05.60.Cd – Classical transport / 66.10.cg – Mass diffusion, including self-diffusion, mutual diffusion, tracer diffusion, etc. / 02.50.Ey – Stochastic processes
© EPLA, 2014
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