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Giant acceleration of free diffusion by use of tilted periodic potentials
P Reimann1, C Van den Broeck, H Linke
1Universität Augsburg, Institut für Physik, Universitätsstrasse 1, D-86135 Augsburg, Germany.
Physical Review Letters
|July 20, 2001
Abstract:
The effective diffusion coefficient for the overdamped Brownian motion in a tilted periodic potential is calculated in closed analytical form. Universality classes and scaling properties for weak thermal noise are identified near the threshold tilt where deterministic running solutions set in. In this regime the diffusion may be greatly enhanced, as compared to free thermal diffusion with, for a realistic experimental setup, an enhancement of up to 14 orders of magnitude.