Efficiency of interacting Brownian motors
Frantisek Slanina
Institute of Physics, Czech Academy of Sciences, Na Slovance 2, CZ-18221 Prague, Czech Republic
Rectification of thermal fluctuations into steady current is achieved
in Brownian motors by the ratchet effect. Generically, requirements of
maximum current and maximum energetical efficiency are never achieved
simultaneously. Here, we formulate a model of strongly interacting
particles in a rocking ratchet and study it using numerical
simulations. We investigate the dependence of current and efficiency
on temperature, particle density and interaction strength. While weak
interactions typically decrease both current and efficiency, for strong
enough interactions we find a region of parameters where the efficiency is
enhanced by the interaction. As for the current, we observe smooth
crossover from standard non-interacting particle behaviour to the
behaviour well known for asymmetric exclusion process (ASEP) or traffic
models. The work can have applications both for tuning
parameters of practically realized brownian motors and as a suggestion for
simple physical implementation of the ASEP model, considered usually
rather as an abstraction.
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