Optimal ratchet current for elastically interacting particles

TL;DR

This paper investigates how the interaction strength between two particles in a ratchet system influences the optimal current, revealing phenomena like current reversals, chaos, and multistability, with implications for controlling particle transport.

Contribution

It demonstrates that stable periodic motion yields optimal ratchet currents and explores how coupling affects system dynamics and current directionality.

Findings

Optimal currents occur during stable periodic motion.

Increasing coupling can cause current reversals and chaos.

Controlling one particle's current influences the entire system.

Abstract

In this work we show that optimal ratchet currents of two interacting particles are obtained when stable periodic motion is present. By increasing the coupling strength between identical ratchet maps, it is possible to find, for some parametric combinations, current reversals, hyperchaos, multistability, and duplication of the periodic motion in the parameter space. Besides that, setting a fixed value for the current of one ratchet it is possible to induce a positive/negative/null current for the whole system in certain domains of the parameter space.