Rectification of Spatial Disorder

We demonstrate that a large ensemble of noiseless globally coupled-pinned oscillators is capable of rectifying spatial disorder with spontaneous current activated through a dynamical phase transition mechanism, either of first or second order, depending on the profile of the pinning potential. In the presence of an external weak drive, the same collective mechanism can result in an absolute negative mobility, which, though not immediately related to symmetry breaking, is most prominent at the phase transition. Our results apply to a tug-of-war by competing molecular motors for bidirectional cargo transport.