Roughness in the periodic potential enhances transport in a driven inertial ratchet

Abstract

We study the effects of roughness in the asymmetric periodic potential on the transport and diffusion of an inertial Brownian particle driven by a time-periodic force in a Gaussian environment. We find that moderate roughness leads to the loss of transient anomalous diffusion, and it helps to establish normal diffusion in the weak noise limit. We uncover a contrasting effect of roughness on the transport of particles in the weak and moderate to large noise limit. In the weak noise limit, small amplitude roughness results in the increase of directed transport, whereas in the moderate to large noise limit, roughness hinders transport. The deterministic dynamics of the system reveals that the purely periodic system under smooth potential transits into a chaotic system due to the moderate roughness in the potential. Therefore our calculations demonstrate the constructive role of roughness in the transport of particles in the inertial regime.