arXiv subjects

Zhiwei Peng

Publications and source records attributed to Zhiwei Peng.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Mean first passage time of chiral active Brownian particles

Chiral active Brownian particles (CABPs) are self-propelled agents with intrinsic rotational dynamics, giving rise to circular trajectories commonly observed in biological and synthetic microswimmers. Understanding how CABPs explore confined environments and locate targets is crucial for characterizing transport, search efficiency, and reaction processes in physical and biological systems. We study the escape dynamics of CABPs from one- and two-dimensional confined domains. In one dimension, we consider intervals with either two absorbing boundaries or a reflecting boundary on one side and an absorbing boundary on the other, and derive closed-form asymptotic solutions in the high-chirality regime, revealing the quantitative scaling of the mean first passage time (MFPT) as a function of particle rotation speed (chirality). In two dimensions, we analyze escape from a disk containing one absorbing arc or two symmetric absorbing arcs. By numerically solving the governing partial differential equations, we compute the MFPT for CABPs to escape the domains as a function of the particle's initial orientation, self-propulsion speed, angular velocity, and domain geometry. Our results show that, depending on the parameters and geometry, the MFPT can exhibit non-monotonic behavior as a function of chirality. A minimal escape time exists at an intermediate value of chirality, where the rotational time scale balances the active swimming time scale, redirecting a particle towards the exit which would otherwise be blocked due to unfavorable initial orientation. Our work offers a comprehensive characterization of CABP escape dynamics in canonical confinements and identifies chirality as a key control parameter for transport and search in confined physical and biological systems.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2026

Splitting probabilities of confined chiral active Brownian particles

Active particles exhibit self-propulsion, leading to transport behavior that differs fundamentally from passive Brownian motion. In confined or structured domains, activity strongly influence escape probabilities and first-passage behavior. Understanding these effects is essential for describing transport in biological microenvironments, microfluidic devices, and heterogeneous media. In this work, leveraging the backward Fokker--Planck equation, we investigate the splitting probability of chiral active Brownian particles in confined domains, focusing on both a one-dimensional interval and a two-dimensional corrugated channel. Analytical solutions are derived for the one-dimensional case in various asymptotic regimes. In corrugated channels with small aspect ratios, we develop a Fick--Jacobs reduction that yields effective transport equations along the axial direction, whereas for finite aspect ratios, the splitting dynamics are characterized numerically. We demonstrate how channel geometry, particle activity, and chirality modulate the likelihood of escape through different boundaries. Our results provide quantitative predictions for the transport of active matter in complex environments and highlight the interplay between confinement and activity.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2025

Dispersion of active particles in oscillatory Poiseuille flow

Active particles exhibit complex transport dynamics in flows through confined geometries such as channels or pores. In this work, we employ a generalized Taylor dispersion (GTD) theory to study the long-time dispersion behavior of active Brownian particles (ABPs) 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 to 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 could vary non-monotonically with both the flow speed and particle activity. Furthermore, the dispersion coefficient shows an oscillatory behavior 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.

physics.flu-dyn↗

arXiv2025

Mean first passage time of active Brownian particles in two dimensions

The mean first passage time (MFPT) is a key metric for understanding transport, search, and escape processes in stochastic systems. While well characterized for passive Brownian particles, its behavior in active systems-such as active Brownian particles (ABPs)-remains less understood due to their self-propelled, nonequilibrium dynamics. In this paper, we formulate and analyze an elliptic partial differential equation (PDE) to characterize the MFPT of ABPs in two-dimensional domains, including circular, annular, and elliptical regions. For annular regions, we analyze the MFPT of ABPs under various boundary conditions. Our results reveal rich behaviors in the MFPT of ABPs that differ fundamentally from those of passive particles. Notably, the MFPT exhibits non-monotonic dependence on the initial position and orientation of the particle, with maxima often occurring away from the domain center. We also find that increasing swimming speed can either increase or decrease the MFPT depending on the geometry and initial orientation. Asymptotic analysis of the PDE in the weak-activity regime provides insight into how activity modifies escape statistics of the particles in different geometries. Finally, our numerical solutions of the PDE are validated against Monte Carlo simulations.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2025

Hot-electron-injection-induced symmetry breaking in bilayer MoS$_2$ probed by second-harmonic generation

Symmetry governs the selection rules of light-matter interactions in crystalline materials, making symmetry manipulation a powerful tool for tuning their optical properties. Here, we demonstrate that the hot-electron injection from a plasmonic resonator breaks the centrosymmtry of an adjacent transition metal dichalcogenide bilayer, probed via second-harmonic generation (SHG) in a Au-nanoparticle@bilayer-MoS$_2$@Au-film hybrid system. Power-dependent SHG measurements exhibit saturation behavior, consistent with a capacitor model where interfacial charge accumulation creates a dynamic barrier limiting further electron injection. Polarization-resolved SHG measurements reveal anisotropic second-order susceptibility response under hot-electron injection, where the contrast between different susceptibility components provides a quantitative measure of symmetry-breaking anisotropy. First-principles calculations elucidate the nonlinear optical responses evolution in bilayer MoS$_2$ and comfirm the anisotropic modification of susceptibility components under hot-electron injection, modeled by a perpendicular electric field. Our work establishes SHG as an effective probe of hot-electron-induced symmetry breaking in 2D materials, demonstrating a promising approach for ultrafast manipulation of material properties through controlled charge injection at the nanoscale.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2024

Macrotransport of active particles in periodic channels and fields: rectification and dispersion

Transport and dispersion of active particles in structured environments such as corrugated channels and porous media are important for the understanding of both natural and engineered active systems. Owing to their continuous self-propulsion, active particles exhibit rectified transport under spatially asymmetric confinement. While progress has been made in experiments and particle-based simulations, a theoretical understanding of the effective long-time transport dynamics in spatially periodic geometries remains less developed. In this paper, we apply generalized Taylor dispersion theory (GTDT) to analyze the long-time effective transport dynamics of active Brownian particles (ABPs) in periodic channels and fields. We show that the long-time transport behavior is governed by an effective advection-diffusion equation. The derived macrotransport equations allow us to characterize the average drift and effective dispersion coefficient. For the case of ABPs subject to a no-flux boundary condition at the channel wall, we show that regardless of activity, the average drift is given by the net diffusive flux along the channel. For ABPs, their activity is the driving mechanism that sustains a density gradient, which ultimately leads to rectified motion along the channel. Our continuum theory is validated against direct Brownian dynamics simulations of the Langevin equations governing the motion of each ABP.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2024

Strain-Enabled Giant Second-Order Susceptibility in Monolayer WSe$_2$

Monolayer WSe$_2$ (ML WSe$_2$) exhibits a high second-harmonic generation (SHG) efficiency under single 1-photon (1-p) or 2-photon (2-p) resonant excitation conditions due to enhanced second-order susceptibility compared with off-resonance excitation states \cite{lin2021narrow,wang2015giant}. Here, we propose a novel strain engineering approach to dramatically boost the in-plane second-order nonlinear susceptibility ($\chi_{yyy}$ ) of ML WSe$_2$ by tuning the biaxial strain to shift two K-valley excitons (the A-exciton and a high-lying exciton (HX)) into double resonance. We first identify the A-exciton and HX from the 2D Mott-Wannier model for pristine ML WSe$_2$ and calculate the $\chi_{yyy}$ under either 1-p or 2-p resonance excitations, and observe a $\sim$ 39-fold $\chi_{yyy}$ enhancement arising from the 2-p HX resonance state compared with the A-exciton case. By applying a small uniform biaxial strain (0.16\%), we observe an exciton double resonance state ($E_{\rm{HX}}$ = 2$E_{\rm{A}}$, $E_{\rm{HX}}$ and $E_{\rm{A}}$ are the exciton absorption energies), which yields up to an additional 52-fold enhancement in $\chi_{yyy}$ compared to the 2-p HX resonance state, indicating an overall $\sim$ 2000-fold enhancement compared to the single 2-p A-exciton resonance state reported in Ref \cite{wang2015giant}. Further exploration of the strain-engineered exciton states (with biaxial strain around 0.16\%) reveals that double resonance also occurs at other wavevectors near the K valley, leading to other enhancement states in $\chi_{yyy}$, confirming that strain engineering is an effective approach for enhancing $\chi_{yyy}$. Our findings suggest new avenues for strain engineering the optical properties of 2D materials for novel nonlinear optoelectronic applications.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2024

Rotational Taylor dispersion in linear flows

The coupling between advection and diffusion in position space can often lead to enhanced mass transport compared to diffusion without flow. An important framework used to characterize the long-time diffusive transport in position space is the generalized Taylor dispersion theory. In contrast, the dynamics and transport in orientation space remains less developed. In this work, we develop a rotational Taylor dispersion theory that characterizes the long-time orientational transport of a spheroidal particle in linear flows that is constrained to rotate in the velocity-gradient plane. Similar to Taylor dispersion in position space, the orientational distribution of axisymmetric particles in linear flows at long times satisfies an effective advection-diffusion equation in orientation space. Using this framework, we then calculate the long-time average angular velocity and dispersion coefficient for both simple shear and extensional flows. Analytic expressions for the transport coefficients are derived in several asymptotic limits including nearly-spherical particles, weak flow, and strong flow. Our analysis shows that at long times the effective rotational dispersion is enhanced in simple shear and suppressed in extensional flow. The asymptotic solutions agree with full numerical solutions of the derived macrotransport equations and results from Brownian dynamics simulations. Our results show that the interplay between flow-induced rotations and Brownian diffusion can fundamentally change the long-time transport dynamics.

physics.flu-dyn↗

arXiv2024

Self-organization of active colloids mediated by chemical interactions

Self-propelled colloidal particles exhibit rich non-equilibrium phenomena and have promising applications in fields such as drug delivery and self-assembled active materials. Previous experimental and theoretical studies have shown that chemically active colloids that consume or produce a chemical can self-organize into clusters with diverse characteristics depending on the effective phoretic interactions. In this paper, we investigate self-organization in systems with multiple chemical species that undergo a network of reactions and multiple colloidal species that participate in different reactions. Active colloids propelled by complex chemical reactions with potentially nonlinear kinetics can be realized using enzymatic reactions that occur on the surface of enzyme-coated particles. To demonstrate how the self-organizing behavior depends on the chemical reactions active colloids catalyze and their chemical environment, we consider first a single type of colloid undergoing a simple catalytic reaction, and compare this often-studied case with self-organization in binary mixtures of colloids with sequential reactions, and binary mixtures with nonlinear autocatalytic reactions. Our results show that in general active colloids at low particle densities can form localized clusters in the presence of bulk chemical reactions and phoretic attractions. The characteristics of the clusters, however, depend on the reaction kinetics in the bulk and on the particles and phoretic coefficients. With one or two chemical species that only undergo surface reactions, the space for possible self-organizations are limited. By considering the additional system parameters that enter the chemical reaction network involving reactions on the colloids and in the fluid, the design space of colloidal self-organization can be enlarged, leading to a variety of non-equilibrium structures.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2023

Asymptotic analysis and simulation of mean first passage time for active Brownian particles in 1-D

Active Brownian particles (ABPs) are a model for nonequilibrium systems in which the constituent particles are self-propelled in addition to their Brownian motion. Compared to the well-studied mean first passage time (MFPT) of passive Brownian particles, the MFPT of ABPs is much less developed. In this paper, we study the MFPT for ABPs in a 1-D domain with absorbing boundary conditions at both ends of the domain. To reveal the effect of swimming on the MFPT, we consider an asymptotic analysis in the weak-swimming or small P\'eclet (Pe) number limit. In particular, analytical expressions for the survival probability and the MFPT are developed up to O(Pe$^2$). We explore the effects of the starting positions and starting orientations on the MFPT. Our analysis shows that if the starting orientations are biased towards one side of the domain, the MFPT as a function of the starting position becomes asymmetric about the center of the domain. The analytical results were confirmed by the numerical solutions of the full PDE model.

math.AP↗

arXiv2023

AI-aided Geometric Design of Anti-infection Catheters

Bacteria can swim upstream due to hydrodynamic interactions with the fluid flow in a narrow tube, and pose a clinical threat of urinary tract infection to patients implanted with catheters. Coatings and structured surfaces have been proposed as a way to suppress bacterial contamination in catheters. However, there is no surface structuring or coating approach to date that thoroughly addresses the contamination problem. Here, based on the physical mechanism of upstream swimming, we propose a novel geometric design, optimized by an AI model predicting in-flow bacterial dynamics. The AI method, based on Fourier neural operator, offers significant speedups over traditional simulation methods. Using Escherichia coli, we demonstrate the anti-infection mechanism in quasi-2D micro-fluidic experiments and evaluate the effectiveness of the design in 3Dprinted prototype catheters under clinical flow rates. Our catheter design shows 1-2 orders of magnitude improved suppression of bacterial contamination at the upstream end of the catheter, potentially prolonging the in-dwelling time for catheter use and reducing the overall risk of catheter-associated urinary tract infections.

physics.med-ph↗

arXiv2022

Confined active matter in external fields

We analyze a dilute suspension of active particles confined between walls and subjected to fields that can modulate particle speed as well as orientation. Generally, the particle distribution is different in the bulk compared to near the walls. In the bulk, particles tend to accumulate in the regions of low speed, but in the presence of an orienting field, particles rotate to align with the field and accumulate downstream in the field direction. At the walls, particles tend to accumulate pointing into the walls and thereby exert pressure on walls. But the presence of strong orienting fields can cause the particles to reorient away from the walls, and hence shows a possible mechanism for preventing contamination of surfaces. The pressure at the walls depends on the wall separation and the field strengths. This work demonstrates how multiple fields with different functionalities can be used to control active matter under confinement.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2022

Forced microrheology of active colloids

Particle-tracking microrheology of dilute active (self-propelled) colloidal suspensions is studied by considering the external force required to maintain the steady motion of an immersed constant-velocity colloidal probe. If the probe speed is zero, the suspension microstructure is isotropic but exhibits a boundary accumulation of active bath particles at contact due to their self-propulsion. As the probe moves through the suspension, the microstructure is distorted from the nonequilibrium isotropic state, which allows us to define a microviscosity for the suspension using the Stokes drag law. For a slow probe, we show that active suspensions exhibit a swim-thinning behavior in which their microviscosity is gradually lowered from that of passive suspensions as the swim speed increases. When the probe speed is fast, the suspension activity is obscured by the rapid advection of the probe and the measured microviscosity is indistinguishable from that of passive suspensions. Generally for finite activity, the suspension exhibits a velocity-thinning behavior -- though with a zero-velocity plateau lower than passive suspensions -- as a function of the probe speed. These behaviors originate from the interplay between the suspension activity and the hard-sphere excluded-volume interaction between the probe and a bath particle.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2022

Trapped-particle microrheology of active suspensions

In microrheology, the local rheological properties such as viscoelasticity of a complex fluid are inferred from the free or forced motion of embedded colloidal probe particles. Theoretical machinery developed for forced-probe microrheology of colloidal suspensions focused on either constant-force (CF) or constant-velocity (CV) probes while in experiments neither the force nor the kinematics of the probe is fixed. More importantly, the constraint of CF or CV introduces a difficulty in the meaningful quantification of the fluctuations of the probe due to a thermodynamic uncertainty relation. It is known that for a Brownian particle trapped in a harmonic potential well, the product of the standard deviations of the trap force and the particle position is $d k_BT$ in $d$ dimensions with $k_BT$ being the thermal energy. As a result, if the force (position) is not allowed to fluctuate, the position (force) fluctuation becomes infinite. To allow the measurement of fluctuations, in this work we consider a microrheology model in which the embedded probe is dragged along by a moving harmonic potential so that both its position and the trap force are allowed to fluctuate. Starting from the full Smoluchowski equation governing the dynamics of $N$ hard active Brownian particles, we derive a pair Smoluchowski equation describing the dynamics of the probe as it interacts with one bath particle by neglecting hydrodynamic interactions among particles in the dilute limit. From this, we determine the mean and the variance (i.e., fluctuation) of the probe position in terms of the pair probability distribution. We then characterize the behavior of the system in the limits of both weak and strong trap. By taking appropriate limits, we show that our generalized model can be reduced to the well-studied CF or CV microrheology models.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2022

Activity-induced propulsion of a vesicle

Modern biomedical applications such as targeted drug delivery require a delivery system capable of enhanced transport beyond that of passive Brownian diffusion. In this work an osmotic mechanism for the propulsion of a vesicle immersed in a viscous fluid is proposed. By maintaining a steady-state solute gradient inside the vesicle, a seepage flow of the solvent (e.g., water) across the semipermeable membrane is generated which in turn propels the vesicle. We develop a theoretical model for this vesicle-solute system in which the seepage flow is described by a Darcy flow. Using the reciprocal theorem for Stokes flow it is shown that the seepage velocity at the exterior surface of the vesicle generates a thrust force which is balanced by the hydrodynamic drag such that there is no net force on the vesicle. We characterize the motility of the vesicle in relation to the concentration distribution of the solute confined inside the vesicle. Any osmotic solute is able to propel the vesicle so long as a concentration gradient is present. In the present work, we propose active Brownian particles (ABPs) as a solute. To maintain a symmetry-breaking concentration gradient, we consider ABPs with spatially varying swim speed and ABPs with constant properties but under the influence of an orienting field. In particular, it is shown that at high activity the vesicle velocity is $\boldsymbol{U}\sim [K_\perp /(η_e\ell_m) ]\int Π_0^\mathrm{swim} \boldsymbol{n} dΩ$, where $Π_0^\mathrm{swim}$ is the swim pressure just outside the thin accumulation boundary layer on the interior vesicle surface, $\boldsymbol{n}$ is the unit normal vector of the vesicle boundary, $K_\perp$ is the membrane permeability, $η_e$ is the viscosity of the solvent, and $\ell_m$ is the membrane thickness.

physics.flu-dyn↗

arXiv2021

Distribution and pressure of active Lévy swimmers under confinement

Many active matter systems are known to perform Lévy walks during migration or foraging. Such superdiffusive transport indicates long-range correlated dynamics. These behavior patterns have been observed for microswimmers such as bacteria in microfluidic experiments, where Gaussian noise assumptions are insufficient to explain the data. We introduce \textit{active Lévy swimmers} to model such behavior. The focus is on ideal swimmers that only interact with the walls but not with each other, which reduces to the classical Lévy walk model but now under confinement. We study the density distribution in the channel and force exerted on the walls by the Lévy swimmers, where the boundaries require proper explicit treatment. We analyze stronger confinement via a set of coupled kinetics equations and the swimmers' stochastic trajectories. Previous literature demonstrated that power-law scaling in a multiscale analysis in free space results in a fractional diffusion equation. We show that in a channel, in the weak confinement limit active Lévy swimmers are governed by a modified Riesz fractional derivative. Leveraging recent results on fractional fluxes, we derive steady state solutions for the bulk density distribution of active Lévy swimmers in a channel, and demonstrate that these solutions agree well with particle simulations. The profiles are non-uniform over the entire domain, in contrast to constant-in-the-bulk profiles of active Brownian and run-and-tumble particles. Our theory provides a mathematical framework for Lévy walks under confinement with sliding no-flux boundary conditions and provides a foundation for studies of interacting active Lévy swimmers.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2017

Propulsion via flexible flapping in granular media

Biological locomotion in nature is often achieved by the interaction between a flexible body and its surrounding medium. The interaction of a flexible body with granular media is less understood compared with viscous fluids partially due to its complex rheological properties. In this work we explore the effect of flexibility on granular propulsion by considering a simple mechanical model where a rigid rod is connected to a torsional spring that is under a displacement actuation using a granular resistive force theory. Through a combined numerical and asymptotic investigation, we characterize the propulsive dynamics of such a flexible flapper in relation to the actuation amplitude and spring stiffness and compare these dynamics with those observed in a viscous fluid. In addition, we demonstrate that the maximum possible propulsive force can be obtained in the steady propulsion limit with a finite spring stiffness and large actuation amplitude. These results may apply to the development of synthetic locomotive systems that exploit flexibility to move through complex terrestrial media.

physics.flu-dyn↗

arXiv2016

Maximizing propulsive thrust of a driven filament at low Reynolds number via variable flexibility

At low Reynolds numbers the locomotive capability of a body can be dramatically hindered by the absence of inertia. In this work, we show how propulsive performance in this regime can be significantly enhanced by employing spatially varying flexibility. As a prototypical example, we consider the propulsive thrust generated by a filament periodically driven at one end. The rigid case leads to zero propulsion, as so constrained by Purcell's scallop theorem, while for uniform filaments there exists a bending stiffness maximizing the propulsive force at a given frequency; here we demonstrate explicitly how considerable further improvement (greater than 37% enhancement compared with the optimal uniform stiffness) can be achieved by simply varying the stiffness along the filament. The optimal flexibility distribution is strongly configuration-dependent: while increasing the flexibility towards the tail-end enhances the propulsion of a clamped filament, for a hinged filament decreasing the flexibility towards the tail-end is instead favorable. The results reveal new design principles for maximizing propulsion at low Reynolds numbers, potentially useful for developing synthetic micro-swimmers requiring large propulsive force for various biomedical applications.

physics.flu-dyn↗