Giant acceleration of free diffusion by use of tilted periodic potentials

Phys Rev Lett. 2001 Jul 2;87(1):010602. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.87.010602. Epub 2001 Jun 18.

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.