On the foundations of the stochastic immersed boundary method Original Research Article

We explore the theoretical foundations for the inclusion of thermal fluctuations in the immersed boundary method for simulating microscale fluid systems with immersed flexible structures, as in cellular and subcellular biology. We investigate in particular the physical validity of the thermal forcing scheme with respect to the coupling of fluid and immersed structural degrees of freedom and non-equilibrium conditions. We discuss also the shortcomings of a natural alternative scheme in which the thermal fluctuations are applied directly to the structural degrees of freedom through Langevin-type dynamics.