Stochastic Resonance and Ratchets: Two Closely Related Phenomena in Brownian Motors

Abstract

Ratchet effect as well as the phenomenon of stochastic resonance (SR) is investigated in a simple flashing ratchet model. Numerical simulations show that both the power spectrum amplitude and the mean mobility of the system vary non-monotonically in similar manners with increasing the noise intensity and both reach their highest point nearly at the same noise level. We point out that the consistency of these two phenomena are just due to the existence of circular flux in non-equilibrium state.