1302.2214 (Vincent Démery)

Diffusion of a weak thermal Casimir particle    [PDF]

Vincent Démery

We study the diffusion of a Brownian particle quadratically coupled to a thermally fluctuating field. In the weak coupling limit, a path-integral formulation allows to compute the effective diffusion coefficient in the cases of an active particle, that tends to suppress the field fluctuations, and of a passive particle, that only undergoes the field fluctuations. We show that the behavior is similar to what was previously found for a linear coupling: an active particle is always slowed down, whereas a passive particle can be accelerated by a fast field. Numerical simulations show a good agreement with the analytical calculations. The examples of a membrane protein coupled to the curvature or composition of the membrane are discussed, with focus on the room for anomalous diffusion.

View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1302.2214