Enhanced diffusion with abnormal temperature dependence in underdamped space-periodic systems subject to time-periodic driving.

Abstract

We present a study of the diffusion enhancement of underdamped Brownian particles in a one-dimensional symmetric space-periodic potential due to external symmetric time-periodic driving with zero mean. We show that the diffusivity can be enhanced by many orders of magnitude at an appropriate choice of the driving amplitude and frequency. The diffusivity demonstrates abnormal (decreasing) temperature dependence at the driving amplitudes exceeding a certain value. At any fixed driving frequency Ω normal temperature dependence of the diffusivity is restored at low enough temperatures, T<T_{TAD}(Ω)-in contrast with the problem with constant external driving. At fixed temperature at small driving frequency the diffusivity either slowly decreases with Ω, or (at stronger driving) goes through a maximum near Ω_{2}, the reciprocal superdiffusion regime termination time. At high frequencies, between Ω_{2} and a fraction of the oscillation frequency at the potential minimum, the diffusivity is shown to decrease with Ω according to a power law, with the exponent related to the transient superdiffusion exponent. This behavior is found similar for the cases of sinusoidal in time and piecewise constant periodic ("square") driving.