Regensburg 2010 – scientific programme

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DY: Fachverband Dynamik und Statistische Physik

DY 7: Stochastic processes, brownian motion, and transport

DY 7.4: Talk

Tuesday, March 23, 2010, 10:30–10:45, H46

Steering the potential barriers: energetic entropic — •P. Sekhar Burada¹, Peter Hänggi², and Gerhard Schmid² — ¹MPI for the Physics of Complex Systems, Dresden, Germany — ²University of Augsburg, Augsburg, Germany

We propose a new mechanism to alter the nature of the potential barrier when a biased Brownian particle under goes a constrained motion in narrow, periodic channels [1,2]. By rotating the external bias, the nature of the potential barrier changes from energetic to purely entropic which in turn effects the diffusion process inside the system. At an optimum angle of the bias, the average particle current exhibits a resonance-like peak. Moreover, the enhancement of the effective diffusion coefficient is efficiently controlled by the rotation angle. This mechanism enables the proper design of channel structures for transport of molecules and small particles. The approximative analytical predictions have been corroborated with precise Brownian dynamic simulations of the full dynamics.
[1]. P.S. Burada, P. Hänggi, F. Marchesoni, G. Schmid, and P. Talkner, ChemPhysChem 10, 45 (2009).
[2]. D. Reguera, G. Schmid, P.S. Burada, J.M. Rubí, P. Reimann, and P. Hänggi, Phys. Rev. Lett. 96, 130603 (2006).