Transport of elastically coupled particles in an asymmetric periodic potential

Abstract

We study the motion of a chain of elastically coupled particles in an asymmetric potential. The particles are also subject to thermal fluctuations and a stochastic driving force of zero temporal average. The main motivation for investigating such systems originates from their partial analogy with a number of important models, including stochastic ratchets, the Frenkel-Kontorova model, and the various approaches to the microscopic description of friction and stick-slip motion having attracted great interest recently. We find that the collective behavior of the elastically coupled particles under certain conditions leads to an average velocity v which is larger than that of a single particle. The dependence of v on the coupling constant shows interesting anomalies discussed in the paper.