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The effects of internal adaptation dynamics on the self-organized aggregation of chemotactic bacteria are investigated by Monte Carlo (MC) simulations based on a two-stream kinetic transport equation coupled with a reaction-diffusion equation of the chemoattractant that bacteria produce. A remarkable finding is a nonmonotonic behavior of the peak aggregation density with respect to the adaptation time; more specifically, aggregation is the most enhanced when the adaptation time is comparable to or moderately larger than the mean run time of bacteria. Another curious observation is the formation of a trapezoidal aggregation profile occurring at a very large adaptation time, where the biased motion of individual cells is rather hindered at the plateau regimes due to the boundedness of the tumbling frequency modulation. Asymptotic analysis of the kinetic transport system is also carried out, and a novel asymptotic equation is obtained at the large adaptation-time regime while the Keller-Segel type equations are obtained when the adaptation time is moderate. Numerical comparison of the asymptotic equations with MC results clarifies that trapezoidal aggregation is well described by the novel asymptotic equation, and the nonmonotonic behavior of the peak aggregation density is interpreted as the transient of the asymptotic solutions between different adaptation time regimes.

It is of great biological interest to understand the molecular origins of chemotactic behavior of E. coli by developing population-level models based on the underlying signaling pathway dynamics. We derive macroscopic models for E.coli chemotaxis that match quantitatively with the agent-based model (SPECS) for all ranges of the spacial gradient, in particular when the chemical gradient is large such that the standard Keller-Segel model is no longer valid. These equations are derived both formally and rigorously as asymptotic limits for pathway-based kinetic equations. We also present numerical results that show good agreement between the macroscopic models and SPECS. Our work provides an answer to the question of how to determine the population-level diffusion coefficient and drift velocity from the molecular mechanisms of chemotaxis, for both shallow gradients and large gradients environments.

In this article we deduce a mathematical model of Maxwell-Stefan type for a reactive mixture of polyatomic gases with a continuous structure of internal energy. The equations of the model are derived in the diffusive limit of a kinetic system of Boltzmann equations for the considered mixture, in the general non-isothermal setting. The asymptotic analysis of the kinetic system is performed under a reactive-diffusive scaling for which mechanical collisions are dominant with respect to chemical reactions. The resulting system couples the Maxwell-Stefan equations for the diffusive fluxes with the evolution equations for the number densities of the chemical species and the evolution equation for the temperature of the mixture. The production terms due to the chemical reaction and the Maxwell-Stefan diffusion coefficients are moreover obtained in terms of the collisional kernels and parameters of the kinetic model., 32 pages

We study the light backscattered by a half space composed of an absorbing and scattering medium due to a continuous and pulsed collimated beam obliquely incident on the boundary. This problem has several applications, but we focus our attention here on midinfrared diffuse reflectance spectroscopy. For that problem, one seeks to determine the absorption spectrum due to a weakly absorbing analyte mixed with a strongly scattering medium. The theory of radiative transfer is used to model this problem. In particular, we apply a systematic asymptotic analysis on the boundary value problem for the continuous beam and the initial-boundary value problem for the pulsed beam and obtain a simple model for the diffuse reflectance that accurately captures its multiscale behavior in space and time. We validate the results of this asymptotic analysis through comparisons with numerical results computed from the full radiative transfer equation.

International audience; The paper presents a rigorous derivation of the velocity autocorrelation function for an anomalously diffusing slow solute particle in a bath of fast solvent molecules. The result is obtained within the framework of the generalized Langevin equation and uses only scaling arguments and identities which are based on asymptotic analysis. It agrees with the velocity autocorrelation function of an anomalously diffusing Rayleigh particle whose dynamics is described by a fractional Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process in velocity space. A simple semi-analytical example illustrates under which conditions the latter model is appropriate.

The narrow escape problem refers to the problem of calculating the mean first passage time (MFPT) needed for an average Brownian particle to leave a domain with an insulating boundary containing N small well-separated absorbing windows, or traps. This mean first passage time satisfies the Poisson partial differential equation subject to a mixed Dirichlet-Neumann boundary condition on the domain boundary, with the Dirichlet condition corresponding to absorbing traps. In the limit of small total trap size, a common asymptotic theory is presented to calculate the MFPT in two-dimensional domains and in the unit sphere. The asymptotic MFPT formulas depend on mutual trap locations, allowing for global optimization of trap locations. Although the asymptotic theory for the MFPT was developed in the limit of asymptotically small trap radii, and under the assumption that the traps are well-separated, a comprehensive study involving comparison with full numerical simulations shows that the full numerical and asymptotic results for the MFPT are within 1% accuracy even when total trap size is only moderately small, and for traps that may be rather close together. This close agreement between asymptotic and numerical results at finite, and not necessarily asymptotically small, values of the trap size clearly illustrates one of the key side benefits of a theory based on a systematic asymptotic analysis. In addition, for the unit sphere, numerical results are given for the optimal configuration of a collection of traps on the surface of a sphere that minimizes the average MFPT. The case of N identical traps and a pattern of traps with two different sizes are considered. The effect of trap fragmentation on the average MFPT is also discussed.

A detailed asymptotic analysis accounting for wall curvature extends the Brenner-Gaydos formula for the hydrodynamic hindrance factor (J. Colloid Interface Sci. 1977, 58, 312-356) to terms of order λ 2 , yielding a new result of the form D/D∞ = (1-λ) -2 [1+(9/8)λ ln λ - 1.539λ +C 2 λ 2 + o(λ 2 )], with C 2 ≃1.2, where λ denotes the ratio of solute to pore radii. The accuracy of approximate formulas for D is assessed definitively by comparison with recent boundary element calculations and experiments

International audience; We revisit the definition of the diffusion coefficient for light transport in scattering and absorbing media. From an asymptotic analysis of the transport equation, we present a novel derivation of the diffusion coefficient , which is restricted neither to low absorption nor to a situation in which the specific intensity is quasi-isotropic. Our result agrees with previous expressions of the diffusion coefficient in the appropriate limit. Using numerical simulations, we discuss the implications of the proper choice of the diffusion coefficient for time-dependent transport.