Dresden 2006 – scientific programme

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AKB: Biologische Physik

AKB 21: Intracellular Transport

AKB 21.2: Talk

Thursday, March 30, 2006, 11:00–11:15, ZEU 260

Multicriticality in a driven transport process on two coupled lanes — •Tobias Reichenbach, Thomas Franosch, and Erwin Frey — Arnold Sommerfeld Center for Theoretical Physics and CeNS, Department of Physics, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Theresienstrasse 37, D-80333 München, Germany

Intracellular transports constitute important examples of biological systems that exhibit interesting collective phenomena. Molecular motors, like myosin, kinesin, and dynein, move along cytoskeletal filaments. When considering a large assembly of such motors, their interaction gives rise to various phenomena.
One can study such transport processes on the basis of driven stochastic systems far from equilibrium. Boundary induced phase transitions and phase separation [1] are among the unexpected phenomena which arise.
Here, we present a two-lane model that, incorporating these features, exhibits a rich variety of phases. Both first order and second order phase transitions arise. At their intersections, multicritical behaviour emerges. An analytical treatment is feasible via a mean field approach. We compare our results to Monte-Carlo simulations.

[1] A. Parmeggiani, T. Franosch, and E. Frey, Phys. Rev. Lett. 90, 086601 (2003)