Controlling the transport of active matter in disordered lattices of
asymmetrical obstacles
PHYSICAL REVIEW E, (2020)DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevE.101.022601
Abstract
We investigate the transport of active matter in the presence of a
disordered square lattice of asymmetric obstacles, which is built by
removing a fraction of them from the initial full lattice. We obtain a
spontaneous inversion of the net particle current, compared to the usual
sense of such a current as a function of the fraction of removed
obstacles and particle density. We observed that the negative current
regime is the consequence of trapping of particles among the obstacles
which favors that more particles move in the negative current direction.
The same reasoning applies to the positive current regime as well. We
show a calculation that partially reproduces our numerical results,
based on the argument that the mean current is given by the product of
the mean speed and the mean number of travelers in each direction; the
breakdown of this assumption is responsible for the failure of our
calculation to reproduce the initial negative current regime.