Dispersion of active particles in oscillatory Poiseuille flow

Abstract

Active particles exhibit complex transport dynamics in flows through confined geometries such as channels or pores. In this work, we employ a generalised Taylor dispersion (GTD) theory to study the long-time dispersion behaviour of active Brownian particles in an oscillatory Poiseuille flow within a planar channel. We quantify the time-averaged longitudinal dispersion coefficient as a function of the flow speed, flow oscillation frequency and particle activity. In the weak-activity limit, asymptotic analysis shows that activity can either enhance or hinder the dispersion compared with the passive case. For arbitrary activity levels, we numerically solve the GTD equations and validate the results with Brownian dynamics simulations. We show that the dispersion coefficient can vary non-monotonically with both the flow speed and particle activity. Furthermore, the dispersion coefficient shows an oscillatory behaviour as a function of the flow oscillation frequency, exhibiting distinct minima and maxima at different frequencies. The observed oscillatory dispersion results from the interplay between self-propulsion and oscillatory flow advection – a coupling absent in passive or steady systems. Our results show that time-dependent flows can be used to tune the dispersion of active particles in confinement.