Two-dimensional diffusion biased by a transverse gravitational force in an asymmetric channel: Reduction to an effective one-dimensional description.

Abstract

We focus on the derivation of a general position-dependent effective diffusion coefficient to describe two-dimensional (2D) diffusion in a narrow and smoothly asymmetric channel of varying width under a transverse gravitational external field, a generalization of the symmetric channel case using the projection method introduced earlier by Kalinay and Percus [P. Kalinay and J. K. Percus, J. Chem. Phys. 122, 204701 (2005)10.1063/1.1899150]. To this end, we project the 2D Smoluchowski equation into an effective one-dimensional generalized Fick-Jacobs equation in the presence of constant force in the transverse direction. The expression for the diffusion coefficient given in Eq.(34) is our main result. This expression is a more general effective diffusion coefficient for narrow 2D channels in the presence of constant transverse force, which contains the well-known previous results for a symmetric channel obtained by Kalinay, as well as the limiting cases when the transverse gravitational external field goes to zero and infinity. Finally, we show that diffusivity can be described by the interpolation formula proposed by Kalinay, D_{0}/[1+(1/4)w^{'2}(x)]^{-η}, where spatial confinement, asymmetry, and the presence of a constant transverse force can be encoded in η, which is a function of channel width (w), channel centerline, and transverse force. The interpolation formula also reduces to well-known previous results, namely, those obtained by Reguera and Rubi [D. Reguera and J. M. Rubi, Phys. Rev. E 64, 061106 (2001)10.1103/PhysRevE.64.061106] and by Kalinay [P. Kalinay, Phys. Rev. E 84, 011118 (2011)10.1103/PhysRevE.84.011118].