BPCPPDYSOE21 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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DY: Fachverband Dynamik und Statistische Physik

DY 45: Brownian Motion and Anomalous Transport - organized by Ralf Metzler (Potsdam)

DY 45.1: Hauptvortrag

Mittwoch, 24. März 2021, 14:00–14:30, DYc

Small diffusive systems warm up faster than they cool down — Alessio Lapolla and •Aljaz Godec — Mathematical bioPhysics Group, Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, Göttingen

The celebrated laws of linear irreversible thermodynamics dictate that the relaxation of an extensive thermodynamic observable to its equilibrium value depends linearly on the departure from equilibrium, and is therefore independent of the direction of the departure. However, these linear laws rely on the assumption of "local thermodynamic equilibrium" which is expected to break down when systems become sufficiently small. It turns out that the relaxation of nano-scale systems driven out of equilibrium by a rapid change in temperature depends not only on the distance but also on the direction of the displacement from thermodynamic equilibrium. Contrary to intuition nano-scale systems in fact warm up faster than they cool down. This asymmetry is a general feature of reversible overdamped diffusive systems with smooth single-well potentials and also occurs in multi-well landscapes when quenches disturb predominantly intra-well equilibria. In the talk we will explain the physical origin of this intriguing asymmetry in relaxation to equilibrium.

[1] A. Lapolla, A. Godec, Phys. Rev. Lett 125, 110602 (2020) with focus article in Physics 13, 144 (2020)