Seminar by Alberto Imparato

Autonomous thermal motors
Alberto Imparato (Associate Professor, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Aarhus)

I will present a minimal model of autonomous thermal motor, made of two interacting Brownian particles, sitting on two periodic potentials, and kept at different temperatures. I will show that such a system does not require ratchet potentials (with, e.g., an asymmetric saw-tooth shape) in order to exhibit direct transport, but presents a spontaneous symmetry breaking. Using the formalism of stochastic thermodynamics, both the dynamic and thermodynamic properties of the model are discussed. In particular, I will discuss how to optimize the motor efficiency.