Memory-induced absolute negative mobility

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that memory effects in non-Markovian systems can induce absolute negative mobility, where particles move opposite to the applied force, using a driven Brownian particle model with correlated noise.

Contribution

It reveals that memory can induce absolute negative mobility in non-Markovian systems, analyzed through an effective mass approach in a driven Brownian particle model.

Findings

Memory induces negative mobility in non-Markovian systems.

Effective mass approach explains the origin of negative mobility.

Correlated thermal noise leads to counterintuitive particle movement.

Abstract

Non-Markovian systems form a broad area of physics that remains greatly unexplored despite years of intensive investigations. The spotlight is on memory as a source of effects that are absent in their Markovian counterparts. In this work we dive into this problem and analyze a driven Brownian particle moving in a spatially periodic potential and exposed to correlated thermal noise. We show that the absolute negative mobility effect, in which the net movement of the particle is in direction opposite to the average force acting on it, may be induced by the memory of the setup. To explain the origin of this phenomenon we resort to the recently developed effective mass approach to dynamics of non-Markovian systems.