Reconfiguration, swelling and tagged monomer dynamics of a single polymer chain in Gaussian and non-Gaussian active baths

TL;DR

This review discusses how active baths, Gaussian or non-Gaussian, influence the structure and dynamics of single polymer chains, highlighting effects like swelling, slow reconfiguration, and superdiffusive monomer motion.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of recent analytical results on polymer dynamics in active baths, including new insights from the authors' research.

Findings

Active noise causes polymer chain swelling and slow reconfiguration.

Persistent active noise leads to superdiffusive or ballistic monomer motion.

Analytical results detail the impact of active baths on polymer behavior.

Abstract

In this topical review, we give an overview of the structure and dynamics of a single polymer chain in active baths, Gaussian or non-Gaussian. The review begins with the discussion of single flexible or semiflexible linear polymer chains subjected to two noises, thermal and active. The active noise has either Gaussian or non-Gaussian distribution but has a memory, accounting for the persistent motion of the active bath particles. This finite persistence makes the reconfiguration dynamics of the chain slow as compared to the purely thermal case and the chain swells. The active noise also results superdiffusive or ballistic motion of the tagged monomer. We present all the calculations in details but mainly focus on the analytically exact or almost exact results on the topic, as obtained from our group in recent years. In addition, we briefly mention important works of other groups and include some of our new results. The review concludes with pointing out the implications of polymer chains in active bath in biologically relevant context and its future directions.