Transport coherence in frictional ratchets

Abstract

We study the phenomena of noise induced transport in frictional ratchet systems. For this we consider a Brownian particle moving in a space dependent frictional medium in the presence of external white noise fluctuations. To get the directed transport, unlike in other ratchet models like flashing or rocking ratchets etc., we do not require the potential experienced by the particle to be asymmetric nor do we require the external fluctuations to be correlated. We have obtained analytical expressions for current and the diffusion coefficient. We show that the frictional ratchets do not exhibit a pronounced coherence in the transport in that the diffusion spread overshadows the accompanying directed transport in system with finite spatial extensions.