Microscopic theory for negative differential mobility in crowded environments
We study the behavior of the stationary velocity of a driven particle in an environment of mobile hard-core obstacles. Based on a lattice gas model, we demonstrate analytically that the drift velocity can exhibit a nonmonotonic dependence on the applied force, and show quantitatively that such negat...
Saved in:
| Published in | Physical review letters Vol. 113; no. 26; p. 268002 |
|---|---|
| Main Authors | , , , , |
| Format | Journal Article |
| Language | English |
| Published |
United States
31.12.2014
|
| Online Access | Get more information |
Cover
Loading…
| Summary: | We study the behavior of the stationary velocity of a driven particle in an environment of mobile hard-core obstacles. Based on a lattice gas model, we demonstrate analytically that the drift velocity can exhibit a nonmonotonic dependence on the applied force, and show quantitatively that such negative differential mobility (NDM), observed in various physical contexts, is controlled by both the density and diffusion time scale of the obstacles. Our study unifies recent numerical and analytical results obtained in specific regimes, and makes it possible to determine analytically the region of the full parameter space where NDM occurs. These results suggest that NDM could be a generic feature of biased (or active) transport in crowded environments. |
|---|---|
| ISSN: | 1079-7114 |
| DOI: | 10.1103/physrevlett.113.268002 |