Migration of Active Rings in Porous Media

Abstract

Inspired by how the shape deformations in active organisms help them to migrate through disordered porous environments, we simulate active ring polymers in two-dimensional random porous media. Flexible and inextensible active ring polymers navigate smoothly through the disordered media. In contrast, semiflexible rings undergo transient trapping inside the pore space; the degree of trapping is inversely correlated with the increase in activity. We discover that flexible rings swell while inextensible and semiflexible rings monotonically shrink upon increasing the activity. Together, our findings identify the optimal migration of active ring polymers through porous media.

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Cited by in corpus (5)

• Active Dynamics of Linear Chains and Rings in Porous Media
• Dynamic Clustering of Active Rings
• Escape dynamics of a self-propelled nanorod from circular confinements with narrow openings
• Excluded volume effects on tangentially driven active ring polymers
• Tangentially Active Polymers in Cylindrical Channels