Flux enhancement and multistability induced by time delays in a feedback controlled flashing ratchet

Feedback controlled ratchets are thermal rectifiers that use information on the state of the system to operate. We study the effects of time delays in the feedback for a protocol that performs an instantaneous maximization of the center-of-mass velocity in the many particle case. For small delays the center-of-mass velocity decreases for increasing delays (although not as fast as in the few particle case). However, for large delays we find the surprising result that the presence of a delay can improve the flux performance of the ratchet. In fact, the maximum flux obtained with the optimal periodic protocol is attained. This implies that the delayed feedback protocol considered can perform better than its non-delayed counterpart. The improvement of the flux observed in the presence of large delays is the result of the emergence of a new dynamical regime where the presence of the delayed feedback stabilizes quasiperiodic solutions that resemble the solutions obtained in a certain closed-loop protocol with thresholds. In addition, in this new regime the system presents multistability, i.e. several quasiperiodic solutions can be stable for a fixed time delay.