Related papers: Conversion of heat to work: An efficient inchworm
Periodically driven systems can lead to a directed motion of particles. We investigate this ratchet effect for a bosonic Mott insulator where both a staggered hopping and a staggered local potential vary periodically in time. If driving…
Theoretical analysis and fully atomistic molecular dynamics simulations reveal a Brownian ratchet mechanism by which thermal fluctuations drive the net displacement of immiscible liquids confined in channels or pores with micro- or…
The dynamics of a dimer coupled to two different environments each in a spin star configuration under the influence of decoherence is studied. The exact analytical expression for the transition probability in the dimer system is obtained…
We revisit the issue of directed motion induced by zero average forces in extended systems driven by ac forces. It has been shown recently that a directed energy current appears if the ac external force, $f(t)$, breaks the symmetry $f(t) =…
A general formulation is developed to study heat conduction in disordered harmonic chains with arbitrary heat baths that satisfy the fluctuation-dissipation theorem. A simple formal expression for the heat current J is obtained, from which…
Active matter is one of the hottest topics in physics nowadays. As a prototype of living systems operating in viscous environments it has usually been modeled in terms of the overdamped dynamics. Recently, active matter in the underdamped…
Heat engines, which cyclically transform heat into work, are ubiquitous in technology. Lasers and masers, which generate a coherent electromagnetic field, may be viewed as heat engines that rely on population inversion or coherence in the…
Ratchet effects can arise for single or collectively interacting Brownian particles on an asymmetric substrate when a net dc transport is produced by an externally applied ac driving force or by periodically flashing the substrate.…
Cold atoms in optical lattices have emerged as an ideal system to investigate the ratchet effect, as demonstrated by several recent experiments. In this work we analyze theoretically two aspects of ac driven transport in cold atoms…
Self-propelled particles accumulate on repulsive barriers in so-called active wetting, but the relationship between this process and equilibrium wetting remains unclear. Using an exact (noiseless) hydrodynamic framework for an active…
{\it E. coli} bacteria swim in straight runs interrupted by sudden reorientation events called tumbles. The resulting random walks give rise to density fluctuations that can be derived analytically in the limit of non interacting particles…
We demonstrate that collective turbulent-like motion in a bacterial bath can power and steer directed transport of mesoscopic carriers through the suspension. In our experiments and simulations, a microwedge-like "bulldozer" draws energy…
The rectification of unbiased fluctuations, also known as the ratchet effect, is normally obtained under statistical non-equilibrium conditions. Here we propose a new ratchet mechanism where a thermal bath solicits the random rotation of an…
Eukaryotic cells and intracellular pathogens such as bacteria or viruses utilize the actin polymerization machinery to propel themselves forward. Thereby, the onset of motion and choice of direction may be the result of a spontaneous…
Here we study a driven lattice gas model for microtubule depolymerizing molecular motors, where traffic jams of motors induce stochastic switching between microtubule growth and shrinkage. We term this phenomenon \enquote{traffic dynamic…
We study a class of heat engines including Feynman's ratchet, which exhibits a directed motion of a particle in nonequilibrium steady states maintained by two heat baths. We measure heat transfer from each heat bath separately, and average…
In this paper, we consider a class of mechanical models which consists of a linear chain of identical chaotic cells, each of which has two small lateral holes and contains a rotating disk at its center. Particles are injected at…
We use molecular dynamics simulations to study the dynamics of an ensemble of interacting self-propelled semi-flexible polymers in contact with a thermal bath. Our intention is to model complex systems of biological interest. We find that…
We explore rectification phenomena in a system where two-dimensional random walkers interact with a funnel-shaped ratchet under two distinct classes of reflection rules. The two classes include the angle of reflection exceeding the angle of…
Brownian motors, or ratchets, are devices which "rectify" Brownian motion, i.e. they can generate a current of particles out of unbiased fluctuations. The ratchet effect is a very general phenomenon which applies to a wide range of physical…