Transport of Brownian particles in a narrow, slowly-varying serpentine channel

Abstract

We study the transport of Brownian particles under a constant driving force and moving in channels that present a varying centerline but have constant aperture width. We investigate two types of channels, {\it solid} channels in which the particles are geometrically confined between walls and {\em soft} channels in which the particles are confined by a periodic potential. We consider the limit of narrow, slowly-varying channels, i.e., when the aperture and the variation in the position of the centerline are small compared to the length of a unit cell in the channel (wavelength). We use the method of asymptotic expansions to determine both the average velocity (or mobility) and the effective diffusion coefficient of the particles. We show that both solid and soft-channels have the same effects on the transport properties up to $O(\epsilon^2)$. We also show that the mobility in a solid-channel at $O(\epsilon^4)$ is smaller than that in a soft-channel. Interestingly, in both cases, the corrections to the mobility of the particles are independent of the P\'eclet number and, as a result, the Einstein-Smoluchowski relation is satisfied. Finally, we show that by increasing the solid-channel width from $w(x)$ to $\sqrt{6/\pi}w(x)$, the mobility of the particles in the solid-channel can be matched to that in the soft-channel up to $O(\epsilon^4)$.