Modelling bacteria in porous media: density dependent reorientation

It has recently been reported that bacteria, such as E.coli and P. putida, perform distinct

modes of motion when placed in porous media as compared to dilute regions or free space. This has

led us to suggest an optimal strategy for active particles in a disordered environment: reorientations

are suppressed in locally dilute regions and intensified in locally dense ones. Thereby the dynamics

is substantially accelerated for up to two orders of magnitude. We observe a non-monotonic behavior of the diffusion coefficient in dependence on

the tumbling rate and identify a localisation transition, either by increasing the density of obstacles

or by decreasing the reorientation rate.