Brownian motor ramifications of the Fluctuation Theorems, Pumping Quantization Theorems, and Pumping-Restriction Theorems. Brownian motor Brownian motors are nano-scale or molecular devices by which thermally activated processes (chemical reactions) are controlled and used to generate directed motion in space and to do mechanical or electrical work. These tiny engines operate in an environment where viscosity dominates inertia, and where thermal noise makes moving in a specific direction as difficult as walking in a hurricane: the forces impelling these motors in the desired direction are minuscule in comparison with the random forces exerted by the environment. Because this type of motor is so
Brownian excursion Groeneboom (1983) and Pitman (1983) give decompositions of Brownian motion formula_5 in terms of i.i.d Brownian excursions and the least concave majorant (or greatest convex minorant) of formula_5. For an introduction to Itô's general theory of Brownian excursions and the Itô Poisson process of excursions, see Revuz and Yor (1994), chapter XII. The Brownian excursion area arises in connection with the enumeration of connected graphs, many other problems in combinatorial theory; see e.g.,, and the limit distribution of the Betti numbers of certain varieties in cohomology theory. Takacs (1991a) shows that formula_19 has density where formula_21 are the zeros of