Barrier crossing and rare fluctuations of active particles

Peter Sollich, Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of Goettingen
(with Rafael Diaz, C Karthik, Leif Peters, Lars Stutzer, Diego Tapias)

We study barrier crossing processes for active particles. Using a low-noise Kramers limit we derive the effective activation barriers for three standard descriptions: active Brownian (ABP), active Ornstein-Uhlenbeck (AOUP) and run-and-tumble particles (RTP). We find that, because barrier crossing is dominated by rare fluctuations, there are significant qualitative differences between these, opening the way to e.g. designing potentials that could sort active particles according to their self-propulsion mechanism. For ABPs one key result is that, for potentials with a symmetry axis, activity can generate optimal escape paths that break this symmetry.

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