Quenched disorder effects on deterministic inertia ratchets - art. no. 061104

The effect of quenched disorder on the underdamped motion of a periodically driven particle on a ratchet potential is studied. As a consequence of dis order, current reversal and chaotic diffusion may take place on regular tra jectories. On the other hand, on some chaotic trajectories disorder induces regular motion. A localization effect similar to the Golosov phenomenon se ts in whenever a disorder threshold that depends on the mass of the particl e is reached. Possible applications of the localization phenomenon are disc ussed.