Abstract
Scientists have observed and studied diffusive waves in contexts as disparate as population genetics and cell signaling. Often, these waves are propagated by discrete entities or agents, such as individual cells in the case of cell signaling. For a broad class of diffusive waves, we characterize the transition between the collective propagation of diffusive waves, in which the wave speed is well described by continuum theory, and the propagation of diffusive waves by individual agents. We show that this transition depends heavily on the dimensionality of the system in which the wave propagates and that disordered systems yield dynamics largely consistent with lattice systems. In some system dimensionalities, the intuition that closely packed sources more accurately mimic a continuum can be grossly violated.
- Received 8 January 2021
- Accepted 25 May 2021
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.104.014406
©2021 American Physical Society
Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)
synopsis
Discrete or Continuum? It Matters for Cells
Published 15 July 2021
A new model shows that the properties of waves produced in a cell-signaling process strongly depend on whether the cells are considered to be discrete entities or a collective mass.
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