Fractional Hydrodynamic Memory and Superdiffusion in Tilted Washboard Potentials

Phys Rev Lett. 2019 Nov 1;123(18):180603. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.123.180603.

Abstract

Diffusion in tilted washboard potentials can paradoxically exceed free normal diffusion. The effect becomes much stronger in the underdamped case due to inertial effects. What happens upon inclusion of usually neglected fractional hydrodynamics memory effects (Basset-Boussinesq frictional force), which result in a heavy algebraic tail of the velocity autocorrelation function of the potential-free diffusion making it transiently superdiffusive? Will a giant enhancement of diffusion become even stronger, and the transient superdiffusion last even longer? These are the questions that we answer in this Letter based on an accurate numerical investigation. We show that a resonancelike enhancement of normal diffusion becomes indeed much stronger and sharper. Moreover, a long-lasting transient regime of superdiffusion, including Richardson-like diffusion, ⟨δx^{2}(t)⟩∝t^{3} and ballistic supertransport, ⟨δx(t)⟩∝t^{2}, is revealed.