paper

Biased Brownian motion in extreme corrugated tubes

arXiv:1108.4374 · doi:10.1063/1.3658621

Abstract

Biased Brownian motion of point-size particles in a three-dimensional tube with smoothly varying cross-section is investigated. In the fashion of our recent work [Martens et al., PRE 83,051135] we employ an asymptotic analysis to the stationary probability density in a geometric parameter of the tube geometry. We demonstrate that the leading order term is equivalent to the Fick-Jacobs approximation. Expression for the higher order corrections to the probability density are derived. Using this expansion orders we obtain that in the diffusion dominated regime the average particle current equals the zeroth-order Fick-Jacobs result corrected by a factor including the corrugation of the tube geometry. In particular we demonstrate that this estimate is more accurate for extreme corrugated geometries compared to the common applied method using the spatially dependent diffusion coefficient D(x,f). The analytic findings are corroborated with the finite element calculation of a sinusoidal-shaped tube.

10 pages, 4 figures

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