Giant enhancement of transport driven by active fluctuations: impact of inertia

TL;DR

This study investigates how inertia influences the enhancement of particle transport driven by active fluctuations, revealing that inertia can both induce and modulate this effect depending on system parameters.

Contribution

It extends previous work by comprehensively analyzing the role of inertia in active fluctuation-driven transport enhancement, identifying conditions where inertia amplifies or suppresses the effect.

Findings

Inertia can induce transport enhancement in active fluctuation systems.

The impact of inertia depends on the amplitude distribution variance of active fluctuations.

Different parameter regimes lead to either strengthening, weakening, or destruction of the transport enhancement.

Abstract

Recently, a paradoxical effect has been demonstrated in which transport of a free Brownian particle driven by active fluctuations in the form of white Poisson shot noise can be significantly enhanced when it is additionally subjected to a periodic potential. This phenomenon can emerge in an overdamped system, but it may also be inertia-induced. Here, we considerably extend previous studies and comprehensively investigate the impact of inertia on the effect of free transport enhancement observed in the overdamped system. We detect that inertia can not only induce this phenomenon, but depending on a parameter regime, it may also strengthen, weaken, or even destroy it. We exemplify these different scenarios and explore the parameter space to identify the corresponding regions where they emerge. The variance of the active fluctuations amplitude distribution is a key determinant of the inertia influence on the effect of free transport amplification. Our results are relevant not only for microscopic physical systems but also for biological ones, such as, e.g., living cells, where fluctuations generated by metabolic activities are active by default.