Inertial Brownian motors driven by biharmonic signals

We study transport properties of an inertial Brownian particle moving in viscous symmetric periodic structures and driven by an oscillating signal of two harmonic components. We analyze the influence of symmetric, antisymmetric and asymmetric signals on directed transport and reveal the shift symmetry of the stationary averaged velocity of the Brownian particle with respect to the relative phase of two components of the signal. The shift symmetry holds true in all regimes. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.