# Distinguishing Advective and Powered Motion in Self-Propelled Colloids

## TL;DR

This paper introduces a methodology to differentiate between advective and powered motion in self-propelled colloids, aiding understanding of their long-term behavior and collective phenomena.

## Contribution

It provides a novel statistical analysis approach to distinguish intrinsic active motion from passive advection in catalytic colloids.

## Key findings

- Method effectively separates advective and active motion components.
- Enables better understanding of long-term behavior of active colloids.
- Facilitates analysis of collective phenomena in active matter.

## Abstract

Self-powered motion in catalytic colloidal particles provides a compelling example of active matter, i.e. systems that engage in single-particle and collective behavior far from equilibrium. The long-time, long-distance behavior of such systems is of particular interest, since it connects their individual micro-scale behavior to macro-scale phenomena. In such analyses, it is important to distinguish motion due to subtle advective effects -- which also has long time scales and length scales -- from phenomena that derive from intrinsically powered motion. Here, we develop a methodology to analyze the statistical properties of the translational and rotational motions of powered colloids to distinguish, for example, active chemotaxis from passive advection by bulk flow.