Run, Tumble and Paint

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Sezik, Emir, Britton, Callum, Touma, Alex, Pruessner, Gunnar
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866908913253744640
author Sezik, Emir
Britton, Callum
Touma, Alex
Pruessner, Gunnar
author_facet Sezik, Emir
Britton, Callum
Touma, Alex
Pruessner, Gunnar
contents The visit probability, quantifying whether a particle has reached a given point for the first time by a specified time, provides access to various extreme value statistics and serves as a fundamental tool for characterising active matter models. However, previous studies have largely neglected how the visit probability depends on the internal degree of freedom driving the active particle. To address this, we calculate the "state-dependent'' visit probability for a Run-and-Tumble particle, that is the probability that the particle first passes through $x$ before time $t$, keeping track of its internal state during first passage. This process may be thought of as the particle "painting'' the positions it passes through for the time in the colour of its self-propulsion state. We perform this calculation in one dimension using Doi-Peliti field theory, by extending the tracer mechanism from previous works to incorporate such "polar deposition'' and demonstrate that state-dependent visit probabilities can be elegantly captured within this field-theoretic framework. We further derive the total volume covered by a right- (or left-) moving Run-and-Tumble particle and compare our results with known expressions for Brownian motion.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2603_24277
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Run, Tumble and Paint
Sezik, Emir
Britton, Callum
Touma, Alex
Pruessner, Gunnar
Statistical Mechanics
The visit probability, quantifying whether a particle has reached a given point for the first time by a specified time, provides access to various extreme value statistics and serves as a fundamental tool for characterising active matter models. However, previous studies have largely neglected how the visit probability depends on the internal degree of freedom driving the active particle. To address this, we calculate the "state-dependent'' visit probability for a Run-and-Tumble particle, that is the probability that the particle first passes through $x$ before time $t$, keeping track of its internal state during first passage. This process may be thought of as the particle "painting'' the positions it passes through for the time in the colour of its self-propulsion state. We perform this calculation in one dimension using Doi-Peliti field theory, by extending the tracer mechanism from previous works to incorporate such "polar deposition'' and demonstrate that state-dependent visit probabilities can be elegantly captured within this field-theoretic framework. We further derive the total volume covered by a right- (or left-) moving Run-and-Tumble particle and compare our results with known expressions for Brownian motion.
title Run, Tumble and Paint
topic Statistical Mechanics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.24277