Transport of a passive particle in periodic ratchet potentials under the influence of alternate active and thermal noises: A simulations study

In this paper, we model the transport of a passive Brownian particle subjected to active and thermal noise in the presence of periodic potential. The system can have two types of asymmetries. One due to the shape of the potential (ratchet like) and the other due to the alternately applied active noise. We consider both overdamped and underdamped versions of the model and perform detailed simulations. We calculate the average position, mean squared displacement (MSD), average velocity and mean squared velocity of the particle as a function of different parameters of the problem. In both the regimes we observe that at low-thermal energy, the active and thermal noises, and the asymmetry in the potential, play a constructive role in increasing the particle current. Whereas at higher thermal energy, thermal noise plays a destructive role which reduces the particle current. Further, we analyze the underdamped model in terms of the absolute negative mobility (ANM) as a function of different control parameters. We observe that the ANM enhances with asymmetry in the potential.