Two Mechanisms for Segregating Mixtures of Brownian Particles
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Date
2003-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
We present two mechanisms for segregating mixtures of Brownian particles. In the first
model, we used a W-potential, which is piece-wise linear, with non-homogeneous temperature
background to separate mixtures of two types of Brownian particles that differ in their
diffusion constants. We found closed form expression for the dynamics of the separation as
a function of the parameters characterizing the model. For a given set of model parameter,
we explored how the separation evolves with time and found it to take a maximum value at a
finite time. We are specifically interested in how the barrier height affects the process of segregation
and found that the best separation between the particles occurs at infinite potentials
which corresponds to waiting for infinite times. As such we optimized the segregation and
found the barrier height that gives us the optimized separation. In the second model, we used
a periodic sawtooth potential, created by a uniform gravitational field, to separate mixtures of
two types of Brownian particles. With the application of a small load and a non-homogeneous
temperature background, we have shown that it is possible to separate two types of Brownian
particles that have different masses by making them move in opposite directions
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Segregating Mixtures of Brownian Particles