EPL, 77 (2007) 50003
DOI: 10.1209/0295-5075/77/50003

Granular Brownian motor

B. Cleuren and C. Van den Broeck

Hasselt University - B-3590 Diepenbeek, Belgium

received 6 November 2006; accepted in final form 5 January 2007; published March 2007
published online 16 February 2007

Abstract
An asymmetric object, undergoing dissipative collisions with surrounding particles, acquires a nonzero average velocity. The latter is calculated analytically by an expansion of the Boltzmann equation and the result is compared with Monte Carlo simulations.

PACS
02.50.-r - Probability theory, stochastic processes, and statistics.
05.40.-a - Fluctuation phenomena, random processes, noise, and Brownian motion.

© Europhysics Letters Association 2007