Related papers: Botanical Ratchets
The diffraction of electromagnetic waves at the surface periodic structures accompanied by strong anomalous effects in different diffraction orders is considered in great detail for high-contrast interfaces. We restrict our discussion to…
Auxetic materials become thicker rather than thinner when stretched, exhibiting an unusual negative Poisson's ratio well suited for designing shape transforming metamaterials. Current auxetic designs, however, are often monostable and…
Cells moving on a two dimensional substrate generate motion by polymerizing actin filament networks inside a flat membrane protrusion. New filaments are generated by branching off existing ones, giving rise to branched network structures.…
Recent experiments have shown that surface stresses in soft materials can have a significant strain-dependence. Here we explore the implications of this surface elasticity to show how, and when, we expect it to arise. We develop the…
The objective of this work is to provide a general introduction into the symmetry analysis of the rachet effect using a simple, non-interacting one-particle dynamics. Despite its simplicity, this model contains all the basic aspects of…
The roots of some coastal and wetland trees grow peculiar vertical protrusions, the function of which remains unclear. Here, using computational simulations based on first-principles fluid and sedimentation dynamics, we argue that the…
For collections of particles in a thermal bath interacting with an asymmetric substrate, it is possible for a ratchet effect to occur where the particles undergo a net dc motion in response to an ac forcing. Ratchet effects have been…
We analyze the rectified motion of a Brownian particle in a confined environment. We show the emergence of strong cooperativity between the inherent rectification of the ratchet mechanism and the entropic bias of the fluctuations caused by…
Transport networks are crucial to the functioning of natural and technological systems. Nature features transport networks that are adaptive over a vast range of parameters, thus providing an impressive level of robustness in supply.…
The efficiency of a Brownian particle moving in periodic potential in the presence of asymmetric unbiased fluctuations is investigated. We found that there is a regime where the efficiency can be a peaked function of temperature, which…
It has been found that certain biological organisms, such as Erodium seeds and Scincus scincus, are capable of effectively and efficiently burying themselves in soil. Biological Organisms employ various locomotion modes, including coiling…
We revisit the diffusion properties and the mean drift induced by an external field of a random walk process in a class of branched structures, as the comb lattice and the linear chains of plaquettes. A simple treatment based on scaling…
Lattice-based mechanical metamaterials can be tailored for a wide variety of applications by modifying the underlying mesostructure. However, most existing lattice patterns take symmetry as a starting point. We show that asymmetric lattice…
The flashing Brownian ratchet is a stochastic process that alternates between two regimes, a one-dimensional Brownian motion and a Brownian ratchet, the latter being a one-dimensional diffusion process that drifts towards a minimum of a…
Emulating natural mechanisms in technology has become a very efficient technique to optimize and improve the current machinery. Riblets are such kinds of bio-inspired surface patterns which are seen on Sharks. Their geometric properties…
Characterizing the occupation statistics of a radiation flow through confined geometries is key to such technological issues as nuclear reactor design and medical diagnosis. This amounts to assessing the distribution of the travelled length…
We study active surface wetting using a minimal model of bacteria that takes into account the intrinsic motility diversity of living matter. A mixture of "fast" and "slow" self-propelled Brownian particles is considered in the presence of a…
We study a general model of granular Brownian ratchet consisting of an asymmetric object moving on a line and surrounded by a two-dimensional granular gas, which in turn is coupled to an external random driving force. We discuss the two…
The paper discusses the natural emergence of directed motion in a dimer system due to a structural symmetry breaking. A generalised solution is obtained for the transport of such a system which is driven entirely by bath fluctuations. The…
Complex systems have motivated continuing interest from the scientific community, leading to new concepts and methods. Growing systems represent a case of particular interest, as their topological, geometrical, and also dynamical properties…