Solitons in overdamped Brownian dynamics

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the existence of solitons in overdamped Brownian systems of hard spheres in periodic potentials, revealing novel transport phenomena driven by collective particle assemblies even at high densities and low noise.

Contribution

It introduces the concept of solitons in overdamped Brownian dynamics, showing their role in particle transport in periodic potentials at high densities.

Findings

Solitons form as periodic sequences of particle assemblies.

Particle currents exhibit band-like structures at low temperatures.

Soliton-driven transport persists even at high temperatures despite noise.

Abstract

Solitons are commonly known as waves that propagate without dispersion. Here we show that they can occur for driven overdamped Brownian dynamics of hard spheres in periodic potentials at high densities. The solitons manifest themselves as periodic sequences of different assemblies of particles moving in the limit of zero noise, where transport of single particles is not possible. They give rise to particle currents at even low temperature that appear in band-like structures around certain hard-sphere diameters. At high temperatures, the band-like structures are washed out by the noise, but the particle transport is still dominated by the solitons. All these predicted features should occur in a broad class of periodic systems and are amenable to experimental tests.