Steady state of an active Brownian particle in a two-dimensional harmonic trap

Abstract

We find an exact series solution for the steady-state probability distribution of a harmonically trapped active Brownian particle in two dimensions in the presence of translational diffusion. This series solution allows us to efficiently explore the behavior of the system in different parameter regimes. Identifying "active" and "passive" regimes, we predict a surprising re-entrant active-to-passive transition with increasing trap stiffness. Our numerical simulations validate this finding. We discuss various interesting limiting cases wherein closed-form expressions for the distributions can be obtained.