It is generally believed that sustained directed transport in mechanical systems is not achievable under equilibrium conditions. In this article, by analyzing a simple model, we will show that directed motion under equilibrium conditions can take place and is not inconsistent with conservation...

We look at the dynamics of a Brownian particle with internal degrees of freedom and conformation dependent damping. Inhomogeneous damping apparently makes the problem a stochastic process with multiplicative noise. We derive the equilibrium distribution of such a system on the basis of a single...