Strong Mobility in Disordered Systems

 

Abstract

The transport of interacting particles in disordered media will be discussed. The one-dimensional system includes (i) disorder: the hopping rate governing the movement of a particle between two neighboring lattice sites is inhomogeneous, and (ii) hard core interaction: the maximum occupancy at each site is one particle. Over a substantial regime, the root-mean-square displacement of a particle is faster than diffusive whereas without disorder, the displacement is slower than diffusive. These results are established using scaling arguments and numerical simulations. Remarkably, disorder speeds up the transport of interacting particles despite the fact that disorder slows down non-interacting particles. Therefore, disorder and particle interactions compete in a non-trivial way. Relevance to transport in condensed matter systems, colloidal, biological, and microfluidic channels will be also discussed.

Presentation