Mobility transition in a dynamic environment

Abstract

Depending on how the dynamical activity of a particle in a random environment is influenced by an external field E, its differential mobility at intermediate E can turn negative. We discuss the case where for slowly changing random environment the driven particle shows negative differential mobility while that mobility turns positive for faster environment changes. We illustrate this transition using a two-dimensional-lattice Lorentz model where a particle moves in a background of simple exclusion walkers. The effective escape rate of the particle (or minus its collision frequency) which is essential for its mobility-behavior depends both on E and on the kinetic rate γ of the exclusion walkers. Large γ, i.e., fast obstacle motion, amounts to merely rescaling the particle's free motion with the obstacle density, while slow obstacle dynamics results in particle motion that is more singularly related to its free motion and preserves the negative differential mobility already seen at γ = 0. In more general terms that we also illustrate using one-dimensional random walkers, the mobility transition is between the time-scales of the quasi-stationary regime and that of the fluid limit.