Ratchet, pawl and spring Brownian motor

We present a model for a thermal Brownian motor based on Feynman’s famous ratchet and pawl device. Its main feature is that the ratchet and the pawl are in different thermal baths and connected by a harmonic spring. We simulate its dynamics, explore its main features and also derive an approximate analytical solution for the mean velocity as a function of the external torque applied and the temperatures of the baths. Such theoretical predictions and results from numerical simulations agree within the ranges of the approximations performed.