We consider $n$ particles diffusing freely in a domain. The boundary contains absorbing escape regions, where the particles can escape, and traps, where the particles can be captured. Modeled after biological examples such as receptors in the synaptic cleft and ambush predators waiting for prey, these traps, or capture regions, must recharge between captures. We are interested in characterizing the time courses of the number of particles remaining in the domain, the number of cumulative captures, and the number of available capture regions. We find that under certain conditions, the number of cumulative captures increases linearly in time with a slope and duration determined explicitly by the recharge rate of the capture regions. This recharge rate also determines the mean and variance of the clearance time, defined as the time it takes for all particles to leave the domain. Further, we find that while a finite recharge rate will always result in a lower number of captured particles when compared to instantaneous recharging, it can either increase or decrease the amount of variability. Lastly, we extend the model to partially absorbing traps in order to investigate the dynamics of receptor activation within an idealized synaptic cleft. We find that the width of the domain controls the amount of time that these receptors are activated, while the number of receptors controls the amplitude of activation. Our mathematical results are derived from considering this system in several ways: as a full spatial diffusion process with recharging traps, as a continuous-time Markov process on a discrete state space, and as a system of ordinary differential equations in a mean-field approximation.

• Received 3 August 2018
• Revised 29 November 2018

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.99.022420