Landauer's blow-torch effect in systems with entropic potential.

Abstract

We consider local heating of a part of a two-dimensional bilobal enclosure of a varying cross section confining a system of overdamped Brownian particles. Since varying cross section in higher dimension results in an entropic potential in lower dimension, local heating alters the relative stability of the entropic states. We show that this blow-torch effect modifies the entropic potential in a significant way so that the resultant effective entropic potential carries both the features of variation of width of the confinement and variation of temperature along the direction of transport. The reduced probability distribution along the direction of transport calculated by full numerical simulations in two dimensions agrees well with our analytical findings. The extent of population transfer in the steady state quantified in terms of the integrated probability of residence of the particles in either of the two lobes exhibits interesting variation with the mean position of the heated region. Our study reveals that heating around two particular zones of a given lobe maximizes population transfer to the other.