Directional motion, current reversals and mass separation in a symmetrical periodic potential

Abstract

The transport of a symmetric periodic potential driven by a static bias and correlated noises is investigated for both the over-damped case and the under-damped case. By both theoretical approximation and numerical simulations, we study steady current of an over-damped Brownian particle moving in the potential. It is shown that the symmetric periodic potential driven by a static bias and the correlated noises is simultaneously able to exhibit directional transport, a single current reversal, as well as a double current reversal. For the under-damped case, we examine the dynamic at various inertial strengths by direct simulations of the stochastic differential equations. We specially focus on the influence of inertial term in the particle dynamics for the noise induced, directed current. Different directions of the steady current is found for different masses of the particles, thus an efficient scheme to separate the Brownian particles according to their mass is suggested.