Statistical mechanics of geomagnetic orientation in sediment bacteria
Citable URI
https://hdl.handle.net/1912/10247DOI
10.1575/1912/10247Keyword
Marine sediments; Statistical mechanicsAbstract
Last year we reported on time-of-transit experiments in which magnetically
orienting bacteria crossed a 1-mm stretch in the direction of a uniform
magnetic field. The bacteria were found to behave as tiny self-propelled
compass needles subject both to magnetic field alignment and to the randomizing
effect of thermal agitation. In strong fields, magnetic bacteria are
held in tight aligment; in weaker fields, their swimming paths meander more
and transit times are greater. Paul Langevin derived an expression for the distribution of orientation in
an ensemble of free-moving dipole particles as a function of ambient field
strength. His theory becomes applicable to our experiments when bacterial
migration is analyzed as a sequence of short steps during each of which the
cell swims in a direction randomly selected from the Langevin distribution .
The duration of each step, Δt, is actually a time constant of the cell's loss
of directionality due to thermal agitation. By thus treating the migration
as a process of random walk with drift, we are able to predict the mean and
variance of the time of transit across a 1-mm stretch.
Description
Also published as: Biological Bulletin 159 (1980): 459-460
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Suggested Citation
Gilson, M., & Kalmijn, A. J. (1981). Statistical mechanics of geomagnetic orientation in sediment bacteria. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. https://doi.org/10.1575/1912/10247Related items
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