Biased diffusion in tubes formed by spherical compartments

We study the effect of the driving force on Brownian motion of a point particle in a tube formed by identical spherical compartments, which create periodic entropy potential for the motion along the tube axis. The focus is on (i) the effective mobility and diffusion coefficient of the particle as functions of the driving force, (ii) localization of the particle in the central part of the tube induced by the driving force, and (iii) transit time of the particle between the openings connecting neighboring compartments. Some of the results at very small and large driving force are obtained analytically, while the majority of the results are obtained from Brownian dynamics simulations. (C) 2010 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3489375]