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Active gating: rocking diffusion channels

When the contacts of an open system flip between different reservoirs, the resulting nonequilibrium shows increased dynamical activity. We investigate such active gating for one-dimensional symmetric (SEP) and asymmetric (ASEP) exclusion models where the left/right boundary rates for entrance and exit of particles are exchanged at random times. Such rocking makes SEP spatially symmetric and on average there is no boundary driving; yet the entropy production increases in the rocking rate. For ASEP a non-monotone density profile can be obtained with particles clustering at the edges. In the totally asymmetric case, there is a bulk transition to a maximal current phase as the rocking exceeds a finite threshold, depending on the boundary rates. We study the resulting density profiles and current as functions of the rocking rate.