Weak disorder strongly improves the selective enhancement of diffusion in a tilted periodic potential
The diffusion of an overdamped Brownian particle in a tilted periodic potential is known to exhibit a pronounced enhancement over the free thermal diffusion within a small interval of tilt values. Here we show that weak disorder in the form of small, time-independent deviations from a strictly spati...
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Veröffentlicht in: | Physical review letters 2008-10, Vol.101 (18), p.180601-180601, Article 180601 |
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Hauptverfasser: | , |
Format: | Artikel |
Sprache: | eng |
Online-Zugang: | Volltext |
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Zusammenfassung: | The diffusion of an overdamped Brownian particle in a tilted periodic potential is known to exhibit a pronounced enhancement over the free thermal diffusion within a small interval of tilt values. Here we show that weak disorder in the form of small, time-independent deviations from a strictly spatially periodic potential may further boost this diffusion peak by orders of magnitude. Our general theoretical predictions are in excellent agreement with experimental observations. |
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ISSN: | 0031-9007 1079-7114 |
DOI: | 10.1103/physrevlett.101.180601 |