Directing Brownian motion on a periodic surface
Statistical Mechanics
2009-11-13 v1
Abstract
We consider an overdamped Brownian particle, exposed to a two-dimensional, square lattice potential and a rectangular ac-drive. Depending on the driving amplitude, the linear response to a weak dc-force along a lattice symmetry axis consist in a mobility in basically any direction. In particular, motion exactly opposite to the applied dc-force may arise. Upon changing the angle of the dc-force relatively to the square lattice, the particle motion remains predominantly opposite to the dc-force. The basic physical mechanism consists in a spontaneous symmetry breaking of the unbiased deterministic particle dynamics.
Cite
@article{arxiv.0903.2736,
title = {Directing Brownian motion on a periodic surface},
author = {D. Speer and R. Eichhorn and P. Reimann},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0903.2736},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
4 Pages, 4 figures, accepted for Phys. Rev. Lett