Tracer particles in two-dimensional elastic networks diffuse logarithmically slow

Summary, in English

Several experiments on tagged molecules or particles in living systems suggest that they move anomalously slow - their mean squared displacement (MSD) increase slower than linearly with time. Leading models aimed at understanding these experiments predict that the MSD grows as a power law with a growth exponent that is smaller than unity. However, in some experiments the growth is so slow (fitted exponent ∼0.1-0.2) that they hint towards other mechanisms at play. In this paper, we theoretically demonstrate how in-plane collective modes excited by thermal fluctuations in a two dimensional membrane lead to logarithmic time dependence for the the tracer particle's MSD.

• Author: Ludvig Lizana; Tobias Ambjörnsson; Michael A. Lomholt
• Department/s: Computational Biology and Biological Physics - Has been reorganised
• Publishing year: 2017-01-20
• Language: English
• Publication/Series: Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical
• Volume: 50
• Issue: 3
• Links: http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1751-8121/50/3/034001
• Document type: Journal article
• Publisher: IOP Publishing
• Topic: Physical Sciences; Biophysics; Other Physics Topics
• Keywords: diffusion; logarithmic dynamics; membrane; single-particle tracking
• Status: Published
• ISBN/ISSN/Other: ISSN: 1751-8113