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We use molecular dynamics simulations to investigate the tracer diffusion ina sea of polymers with specific binding zones for the tracer. These bindingzones act as traps. Our simulations show that the tracer can undergo normal yetnon-Gaussian diffusion under certain circumstances, e.g, when the polymers withtraps are frozen in space and the volume fraction and the binding strength ofthe traps are moderate. In this case, as the tracer moves, it experiences aheterogeneous environment and exhibits confined continuous time random walk(CTRW) like motion resulting a non-Gaussian behavior. Also the long timedynamics becomes subdiffusive as the number or the binding strength of thetraps increases. However, if the polymers are mobile then the tracer dynamicsis Gaussian but could be normal or subdiffusive depending on the number and thebinding strength of the traps. In addition, with increasing binding strengthand the number of the polymer traps, the probability of the tracer beingtrapped increases. On the other hand, removing the binding zones does notresult trapping, even at comparatively high crowding. Our simulations also showthat the trapping probability increases with the increasing size of the tracerand for a bigger tracer with the frozen polymer background the dynamics is onlyweakly non-Gaussian but highly subdiffusive. Our observations are in the samespirit as found in many recent experiments on tracer diffusion in polymericmaterials and questions the validity of Gaussian theory to describe diffusionin crowded environment in general.

Tracer diffusion in a sea of polymers with binding zones: mobile vs frozen traps