Eur. Phys. J. B 41, 97-105 (2004)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2004-00299-1

Current and efficiency enhancement in Brownian motors driven by non Gaussian noises

¹ Grupo de Física Estadística, Centro Atómico Bariloche (CNEA) and Instituto Balseiro (UNC-CNEA), 8400 San Carlos de Bariloche, Río Negro, Argentina
² Instituto de Física de Cantabria, Avda. Los Castros s/n, 39005 Santander, Spain

Corresponding authors: ^a bouzat@cab.cnea.gov.ar - ^b wio@ifca.unican.es

Received: 19 March 2004
Revised: 8 July 2004
Published online: 30 September 2004

Abstract

We study Brownian motors driven by colored non Gaussian noises, both in the overdamped regime and in the case with inertia, and analyze how the departure of the noise distribution from Gaussian behavior can affect its behavior. We analyze the problem from two alternative points of view: one oriented mainly to possible technological applications and the other more inspired in natural systems. In both cases we find an enhancement of current and efficiency due to the non-Gaussian character of the noise. We also discuss the possibility of observing an enhancement of the mass separation capability of the system when non-Gaussian noises are considered.