Random walk of passive tracers among randomly moving obstacles

Abstract

Background: This study is mainly motivated by the need of understanding how the diffusion behavior of a biomolecule (or even of a larger object) is affected by other moving macromolecules, organelles, and so on, inside a living cell, whence the possibility of understanding whether or not a randomly walking biomolecule is also subject to a long-range force field driving it to its target. Method: By means of the Continuous Time Random Walk (CTRW) technique the topic of random walk in random environment is here considered in the case of a passively diffusing particle among randomly moving and interacting obstacles. Results: The relevant physical quantity which is worked out is the diffusion coefficient of the passive tracer which is computed as a function of the average inter-obstacles distance. Conclusions: The results reported here suggest that if a biomolecule, let us call it a test molecule, moves towards its target in the presence of other independently interacting molecules, its motion can be considerably slowed down.