Note: Particle transport through deformable pore geometries

Transport and escape in a deformable channel driven by fractional Gaussian noise

Fractional Gaussian noise (FGN) with the Hurst exponent H is an important tool to model various phenomena in biophysical systems, like subdiffusion in a single protein molecule. Considering that there also exists a confined structure which can be modeled as a channel in these systems, transport and escape driven by FGN in a deformable channel are investigated in this paper. By calculating the mean velocity, and the mean first passage time (MFPT) for crossing the nearest bottleneck and the probability distribution of the final position, effects of FGN and channel structure on the system dynamics are illustrated. Our results indicate that FGN has a complex influence mechanism under different combinations of H and the noise intensity. For a persistence case (H>0.5), the mean velocity decreases but MFPT increases with the increase of the noise intensity and H. While for an antipersistence case (H<0.5), when H is small, the relationships among the mean velocity, MFPT and the noise intensity are exactly the opposite to persistence cases. When H has a large value, the mean velocity tends to first decrease and then increase. Moreover, effects of the bottleneck and channel asymmetry are investigated. It is shown that a small H and a large channel width can lead to a large mean velocity and fast crossing. Besides, a channel asymmetry can affect the system dynamics by inducing asymmetric structure and adjusting the width of bottleneck. However, the effect of the bottleneck is the main factor. Therefore, a combination of channel with wide bottleneck and FGN in an antipersistence regime is the optimal choice to promote the transport and escape. These results provide a basis for the explanation of molecular activity in living organisms and the design of particle mixture separators.

Landauer's blowtorch effect as a thermodynamic cross process: Brownian cooling

The local heating of a selected region in a double-well potential alters the relative stability of the two wells and gives rise to an enhancement of population transfer to the cold well. We show that this Landauer's blowtorch effect may be considered in the spirit of a thermodynamic cross process linearly connecting the flux of particles and the thermodynamic force associated with the temperature difference and consequently ensuring the existence of a reverse cross effect. This reverse effect is realized by directing the thermalized particles in a double-well potential by application of an external bias from one well to the other, which suffers cooling.

Brownian transport in corrugated channels with inertia

Transport of suspended Brownian particles dc driven along corrugated narrow channels is numerically investigated in the regime of finite damping. We show that inertial corrections cannot be neglected as long as the width of the channel bottlenecks is smaller than an appropriate particle diffusion length, which depends on the the channel corrugation and the drive intensity. With such a diffusion length being inversely proportional to the damping constant, transport through sufficiently narrow obstructions turns out to be always sensitive to the viscosity of the suspension fluid. The inertia corrections to the transport quantifiers, mobility, and diffusivity markedly differ for smoothly and sharply corrugated channels.