2014/04/03 by Grzegorz Szamel
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics #Micro and Nano Robotics #Molecular Communication and Nanonetworks #cond-mat.soft #cond-mat.stat-mech
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physreve.90.012111
published as Phys. Rev. E 90, 012111 (2014) · 6 pages
arxiv created 2014/04/03 · openalex publication_date 2014/07/14 · arxiv updated 2014/07/23 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We study a stationary state of a single self-propelled, athermal particle in linear and quadratic external potentials. The self-propulsion is modeled as a fluctuating internal driving force evolving according to the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process, independently of the state of the particle. Without an external potential, in the long time limit, the self-propelled particle moving in a viscous medium performs diffusive motion, which allows one to identify an effective temperature. We show that in the presence of a linear external potential the stationary state distribution has an exponential form with the sedimentation length determined by the effective temperature of the free self-propelled particle. In the presence of a quadratic external potential the stationary state distribution has a Gaussian form. However, in general, this distribution is not determined by the effective temperature of the free self-propelled particle.