  We study the dynamics of polymer chains in a bath of self-propelled particles
(SPP) by extensive Langevin dynamics simulations in a two dimensional system.
Specifically, we analyse the polymer looping properties versus the SPP activity
and investigate how the presence of the active particles alters the chain
conformational statistics. We find that SPPs tend to extend flexible polymer
chains while they rather compactify stiffer semiflexible polymers, in agreement
with previous results. Here we show that larger activities of SPPs yield a
higher effective temperature of the bath and thus facilitate looping kinetics
of a passive polymer chain. We explicitly compute the looping probability and
looping time in a wide range of the model parameters. We also analyse the
motion of a monomeric tracer particle and the polymer's centre of mass in the
presence of the active particles in terms of the time averaged mean squared
displacement, revealing a giant diffusivity enhancement for the polymer chain
via SPP pooling. Our results are applicable to rationalising the dimensions and
looping kinetics of biopolymers at constantly fluctuating and often actively
driven conditions inside biological cells or suspensions of active colloidal
particles or bacteria cells.
