The Statistical Physics Concepts of Microbes

Abstract

Microbe behavior can be characterized using the framework of non-equilibrium statistical mechanics because discontinuous activity is dependent on surrounding dynamics, which are a function of interactions with the environment. Microbial motion is typically thought to be Brownian, however when perturbations in the environment alter the fluctuations in the randomness of motion, the general situation resolves to a particular instance of Multi-Fractal Brownian motion. Bacterial cells dwell in an environment with a low Reynolds number, which makes inertia in their motion irrelevant. The use of the Fokker-Planck and Lotka-Volterra expressions yields both qualitative and quantitative findings. In this chapter, we have taken the best possible measures to define a complicated biological system using a physicsbased methodology.