Inertial Reciprocating Photomotor

We present a theory for an inertial reciprocating Brownian motor driven by deterministic dichotomous fluctuations in the parameters of a Brownian particle and confinement potentials (which can be created by optical methods). In the case of parabolic potentials, equilibrium and non-equilibrium fluctuations turn out to be uncoupled; this fact makes it possible to reduce the solving the Klein–Kramers equation to a purely mechanical-dynamic problem. The inclusion of inertial effects leads to a nonmonotonic dependence of the average velocity of the motor (which characterizes the efficiency of converting the input energy due to potential fluctuations into the energy of the reciprocating motion) on the fluctuation frequency, as well as to resonant processes in the limit of small values of the friction coefficient.