Modeling and Simulation Group Meeting

Non-antiperiodic force excitations with zero time-average yield net motion:

It is well known that application of an oscillatory driving force to objects placed in an anisotropic medium gives rise to the so-called “ratchet” effect, where the spatial asymmetry in the resistance to motion yields net drift in one direction. We report that application of an oscillatory excitation with zero-time average but temporal asymmetry can also yield net drift, even in isotropic media.