Extreme fluctuations of active Brownian motion

Patrick Pietzonka, Kevin Kleinbeck, Udo Seifert

Published 2016-03-09Version 1

In active Brownian motion, an internal propulsion mechanism interacts with translational and rotational thermal noise and other internal fluctuations to produce directed motion. We derive the distribution of its extreme fluctuations and identify its universal properties using large deviation theory. The limits of slow and fast internal dynamics give rise to a kink-like and parabolic behavior of the corresponding rate functions, respectively. For dipolar Janus particles in two and three dimensions interacting with a field, we predict a novel symmetry akin to, but different from, the one related to entropy production. Measurements of these extreme fluctuations could thus be used to infer properties of the underlying, often hidden, active mechanism.