Dresden 2026 – scientific programme
Parts | Days | Selection | Search | Updates | Downloads | Help
DY: Fachverband Dynamik und Statistische Physik
DY 57: Statistical Physics of Biological Systems IV (joint session BP/DY)
DY 57.2: Talk
Friday, March 13, 2026, 10:00–10:15, BAR/SCHÖ
Motor shot noise explains active fluctuations in a single cilium — •Maximilian Kotz1, Veikko F. Geyer2, and Benjamin M. Friedrich1 — 1Cluster of Excellence Physics of Life, TU Dresden, Dresden, Germany — 2B CUBE, TU Dresden, Dresden, Germany
Molecular motors drive seemingly regular motion, making living matter move - yet also cause non-equilibrium fluctuations that can serve as a probe of internal motor dynamics. Here, we use motile cilia as a model system to investigate how small-number fluctuations shape collective dynamics. Motile cilia exhibit regular bending waves; this motion is driven by the self-coordinated activity of thousands of molecular motors inside the cilia's cytoskeletal core. By developing, to the best of our knowledge, the first stochastic model of cilia beating, we show that the finite number of motors leads to active fluctuations on the mesoscale, sufficient to explain frequency jitter in beating cilia observed in experimental data. We rigorously compare observables of this model, including the quality factor of the oscillation, to experimental data in which motors have been partially extracted from cilia. This is a strong test of this stochastic model. The model also reproduces other phenomena of experimental data, like correlation lengths of intra-cilium synchronization and noise-induced phase slips. We propose that active fluctuations are important new observables, which can guide theoretical models of motor dynamics in beating cilia and other motor systems.
Keywords: cilia; small number fluctuations; molecular motor