Spontaneous rectification and absolute negative mobility of inertial Brownian particles induced by Gaussian potentials in steady laminar flows

Abstract

We study the transport of inertial Brownian particles in steady laminar flows in the presence of two-dimensional Gaussian potentials. Through extensive numerical simulations, it is found that the transport is sensitively dependent on the external constant force and the Gaussian potential. Within tailored parameter regimes, the system exhibits a rich variety of transport behaviors. There exists the phenomenon of spontaneous rectification (SR), where the directed transport of particles can occur in the absence of any external driving forces. It is found that SR of the particles can be manipulated by the spatial position of the Gaussian potential. Moreover, when the potential lies at the center of the cellular flow, the system exhibits absolute negative mobility (ANM), i.e., the particles can move in a direction opposite to the constant force. More importantly, the phenomenon of ANM induced by Gaussian potentials is robust in a wide range of system parameters and can be further strengthened with the optimized parameters, which may pave the way to the implementation of related experiments.