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Phys. Rev. E 72, 041102 (2005) [9 pages]

First passage time of N excluded-volume particles on a line

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Igor M. Sokolov *
Institut für Physik, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Newtonstraße 15, 12489 Berlin, Germany

Ralf Metzler †
NORDITA, Nordic Institute for Theoretical Physics, Blegdamsvej 17, 2100 Copenhagen Ø, Denmark

Kiran Pant and Mark C. Williams ‡
Department of Physics, Northeastern University, 111 Dana Research Center, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA

Received 12 June 2005; published 17 October 2005

Motivated by recent single-molecule studies of proteins sliding on a DNA molecule, we explore the targeting dynamics of N particles (“proteins”) sliding diffusively along a line (“DNA”) in search of their target site (specific target sequence). At lower particle densities, one observes an expected reduction of the mean first passage time proportional to N−2 , with corrections at higher concentrations. We explicitly take adsorption and desorption effects, to and from the DNA, into account. For this general case, we also consider finite-size effects when the continuum approximation based on the number density of particles breaks down. Moreover, we address the first-passage-time problem of a tagged particle diffusing among other particles.


©2005 The American Physical Society

URL: http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevE.72.041102
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevE.72.041102
PACS: 05.40.−a, 87.15.Vv, 02.50.−r

* Electronic address: igor.sokolov@physik.hu-berlin.de
† Electronic address: metz@nordita.dk
‡ Electronic address: mark@neu.edu

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