Constructive role of temperature in ratchets driven by trichotomous noise - art. no. 041110

The dynamics of an overdamped Brownian particle in a piecewise linear spati ally periodic potential subjected to both thermal and colored symmetric thr ee-level Markovian (trichotomous) noises is investigated. In the case of la rge flatness, the exact formula for the stationary current is presented. Th e dependence of the current on the system parameters is analyzed and the co nditions for the occurrence of current reversals are found. It is shown tha t the direction and value of the current can be controlled by a thermal noi se. Asymptotic formulas for the current for various limits of the noise par ameters are calculated and compared with the results of other authors. For small noise amplitudes, it is demonstrated that the temperature at which th e current is maximized is proportional to the height of the potential barri er, being a slowly varying function of the other system parameters.