A biologically inspired ratchet model of two coupled Brownian motors

Debasis Dan, A.M. Jayannavar and Gautam I. Menon

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 2003, vol. 318, issue 1, 40-47

Abstract: A ratchet model for coupled Brownian motors, inspired by the motion of individual two-headed molecular motors on cytoskeletal filaments, is proposed. Such motors are modeled as two elastically coupled Brownian particles, each of which moves in a flashing ratchet potential. The ratchet potentials felt by the individual particles are anti-correlated, modeling the successive binding and unbinding of the two motor heads to the filament. We obtain, via Langevin simulations, steady-state currents as functions of noise strength, the equilibrium separation of the particles and the rate of switching between potential states. We observe an enhanced current due to coupling, noise-induced stability and phase-locked behaviour in the deterministic regime. A qualitative understanding of these features is provided.

Keywords: Ratchet; Molecular motor; Langevin equation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2003
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378437102014000
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only. Journal offers the option of making the article available online on Science direct for a fee of $3,000

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:318:y:2003:i:1:p:40-47

DOI: 10.1016/S0378-4371(02)01400-0

Access Statistics for this article

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications is currently edited by K. A. Dawson, J. O. Indekeu, H.E. Stanley and C. Tsallis

More articles in Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().