Transport and current reversal in stochastically driven ratchets

We present analytic results for the current in a system moving in an arbitrary periodic potential and driven by weak Gaussian noise with an arbitrary power spectrum which are valid to order (tc/tr) , where tc is the largest characteristic time of the noise, and tr is the characteristic intrawell relaxation time. The dependence of the current on the shape of the potential, and on the shape of the power spectrum of the noise is illustrated. It is demonstrated that the direction of the current is opposite when the power spectrum of the noise has minimum or maximum at zero frequency. A simple physical mechanism for this behavior is suggested. The behavior of the system in the limit of slow noise (tc >> tr) is also discussed. Recently some intriguing work has appeared on the subject of stochastically driven ratchets,[1, 2] and the transformation of noise in spatiallyperiodic (or phase-periodic) systems into a current. Such systems are noise rectifiers and thus are of great interest in relation to the understanding of machinery which operates in “the Brownian regime” [3] that is, on the very