Driven tracer with absolute negative mobility

Abstract

Instances of negative mobility, where a system responds to a perturbation in a way opposite to naive expectation, have been studied theoretically and experimentally in numerous nonequilibrium systems. In this work we show that Absolute Negative Mobility (ANM), whereby current is produced in a direction opposite to the drive, can occur around equilibrium states. This is demonstrated with a simple one-dimensional lattice model with a driven tracer. We derive analytical predictions in the linear response regime and elucidate the mechanism leading to ANM by studying the high-density limit. We also study numerically a model of hard Brownian disks in a narrow planar channel, for which the lattice model can be viewed as a toy model. We find that the model exhibits Negative Differential Mobility (NDM), but no ANM.