Berlin 2024 – scientific programme
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DY: Fachverband Dynamik und Statistische Physik
DY 6: Statistical Physics far from Thermal Equilibrium I
DY 6.1: Invited Talk
Monday, March 18, 2024, 09:30–10:00, BH-N 334
Barrier crossing with non-Gaussian noise: Exponential transition rate gains and effects of active motion — •Peter Sollich1, Adrian Baule2, and Diego Tapias1 — 1Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of Goettingen, Friedrich-Hund-Platz 1, D-37077 Goettingen, Germany — 2School of Mathematical Sciences, Queen Mary University of London, London E1 4NS, UK
Noise-induced escape from metastable states governs a plethora of transition phenomena in physics, chemistry, and biology. While the escape problem for thermal Gaussian noise has been well understood since the seminal works of Arrhenius and Kramers, many systems, in particular living ones, are effectively driven by non-Gaussian noise for which the conventional theory does not apply. Here we present a theoretical framework based on path integrals that allows the calculation of both escape rates and optimal escape paths for a generic class of non-Gaussian noises. We find that non-Gaussian noise always leads to more efficient escape and can enhance escape rates by many orders of magnitude compared with thermal noise, highlighting that away from equilibrium escape rates cannot be reliably modelled based on the traditional Arrhenius-Kramers result. Our analysis also identifies a new universality class of non-Gaussian noises, for which escape paths are dominated by large jumps. We outline finally how the approach can be extended to barrier crossing by self-propelled particles with active Brownian or run-and-tumble motion, and show that dynamical phase transitions can be used to sort such particles according to the persistence of their active motion.
Keywords: Barrier crossing; Non-Gaussian noise; Active particles; Persistent self-propulsion; Metastable states