Directed motion of a Brownian motor in a temperature gradient

摘要

Directed motion of mesoscopic systems in a non-equilibrium environment is of great interest to both scientists and engineers. Here, the translation and rotation of a Brownian motor is investigated under nonequilibrium conditions. An anomalous directed translation is found if the two heads of the Brownian motor are immersed in baths with different particle masses, which is hinted in the analytic computation and confirmed by the numerical simulation. Similar consideration is also used to find the directed movement in the single rotational and translational degree of freedom of the Brownian motor when residing in one thermal bath with a temperature gradient.