Issue 5, 2011

Single particle tracking in systems showing anomalous diffusion: the role of weak ergodicity breaking

Abstract

Anomalous diffusion has been widely observed by single particle tracking microscopy in complex systems such as biological cells. The resulting time series are usually evaluated in terms of time averages. Often anomalous diffusion is connected with non-ergodic behaviour. In such cases the time averages remain random variables and hence irreproducible. Here we present a detailed analysis of the time averaged mean squared displacement for systems governed by anomalous diffusion, considering both unconfined and restricted (corralled) motion. We discuss the behaviour of the time averaged mean squared displacement for two prominent stochastic processes, namely, continuous time random walks and fractional Brownian motion. We also study the distribution of the time averaged mean squared displacement around its ensemble mean, and show that this distribution preserves typical process characteristics even for short time series. Recently, velocity correlation functions were suggested to distinguish between these processes. We here present analytical expressions for the velocity correlation functions. The knowledge of the results presented here is expected to be relevant for the correct interpretation of single particle trajectory data in complex systems.

Graphical abstract: Single particle tracking in systems showing anomalous diffusion: the role of weak ergodicity breaking

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
20 Sep 2010
Accepted
16 Nov 2010
First published
04 Jan 2011

Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 2011,13, 1800-1812

Single particle tracking in systems showing anomalous diffusion: the role of weak ergodicity breaking

S. Burov, J. Jeon, R. Metzler and E. Barkai, Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 2011, 13, 1800 DOI: 10.1039/C0CP01879A

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements