2025/12/10 by Aymeric Lutier, Frédéric van Wijland, Lutier, Aymeric +3
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Computer Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Chemotaxis #Coupling (piping) #Curvature #Diffusion and Search Dynamics #Distributed Control Multi-Agent Systems #FOS: Physical sciences #Instability #Micro and Nano Robotics #Particle (ecology) #RADIUS #Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft) #Substrate (aquarium) #Trajectory
paper · open access · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2512.09597
published in PubMed 113(4-1), 044413 (National Institutes of Health)
openalex publication_date 2025/12/10 · openalex created_date 2025/12/12 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Active matter systems comprise self-propelled particles that move on a substrate while leaving chemical trails that influence other particles through chemotaxis (e.g., slime-depositing bacteria). Orientational chemotaxis manifests as a torque that steers the particle toward the chemical gradient. As each particle is coupled to its own trail, the dynamics exhibits an instability: when the particle gently diffuses, it abruptly transitions to trajectories with a radius of curvature comparable to its own size, becoming apparently trapped. We argue that this trajectory instability occurs for any chemotactic coupling strength, either directly above some threshold or via an activated process below it.