Ratchet universality in the presence of thermal noise

Pedro J. Martínez, Ricardo Chacón

Published 2012-11-29, updated 2013-02-12Version 3

We show that directed ratchet transport of a driven overdamped Brownian particle subjected to a spatially periodic and symmetric potential can be reliably controlled by tailoring a biharmonic temporal force, in coherence with the degree-of-symmetry-breaking mechanism. We demonstrate that the effect of finite temperature on the purely deterministic ratchet scenario can be understood as an \textit{effective noise-induced change} of the potential barrier which is in turn controlled by the degree-of-symmetry-breaking mechanism. Remarkably, we find that the same universal scenario holds for any symmetric periodic potential, while optimal directed ratchet transport occurs when the impulse transmitted (spatial integral over a half-period) by the symmetric spatial force is maximum.