Revisiting the Ratchet Principle: When Hidden Symmetries Prevent Steady Currents

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Metzger, Jessica, Ro, Sunghan, Tailleur, Julien
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2024
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author Metzger, Jessica
Ro, Sunghan
Tailleur, Julien
author_facet Metzger, Jessica
Ro, Sunghan
Tailleur, Julien
contents The "ratchet principle", which states that non-equilibrium systems violating parity symmetry generically exhibit steady-state currents, is one of the few generic results outside thermal equilibrium. We study exceptions to this principle observed in active and passive systems with spatially varying fluctuations sources. For dilute systems, we show that a hidden time-reversal symmetry prevents the emergence of ratchet currents. At higher densities, pairwise forces break this symmetry but an emergent conservation law for the momentum field may nevertheless prevent steady currents. We show how the presence of this conservation law can be tested analytically and characterize the onset of ratchet currents in its absence. Our results show that the ratchet principle should be amended to preclude parity symmetry, time-reversal symmetry, and bulk momentum conservation.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2412_07851
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Revisiting the Ratchet Principle: When Hidden Symmetries Prevent Steady Currents
Metzger, Jessica
Ro, Sunghan
Tailleur, Julien
Statistical Mechanics
Soft Condensed Matter
The "ratchet principle", which states that non-equilibrium systems violating parity symmetry generically exhibit steady-state currents, is one of the few generic results outside thermal equilibrium. We study exceptions to this principle observed in active and passive systems with spatially varying fluctuations sources. For dilute systems, we show that a hidden time-reversal symmetry prevents the emergence of ratchet currents. At higher densities, pairwise forces break this symmetry but an emergent conservation law for the momentum field may nevertheless prevent steady currents. We show how the presence of this conservation law can be tested analytically and characterize the onset of ratchet currents in its absence. Our results show that the ratchet principle should be amended to preclude parity symmetry, time-reversal symmetry, and bulk momentum conservation.
title Revisiting the Ratchet Principle: When Hidden Symmetries Prevent Steady Currents
topic Statistical Mechanics
Soft Condensed Matter
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.07851