Asymptotic work distributions in driven bistable systems

TL;DR

This paper analytically determines the asymptotic tails of work distributions in driven bistable systems, providing insights into non-equilibrium thermodynamics at the nanoscale.

Contribution

It applies a novel analytical method to Langevin systems, accurately predicting work distribution tails in a single-molecule force spectroscopy model.

Findings

Analytical asymptotics match numerical simulations.

Results support universality in work distribution tails.

Method extends understanding of non-equilibrium fluctuations.

Abstract

The asymptotic tails of the probability distributions of thermodynamic quantities convey important information about the physics of nanoscopic systems driven out of equilibrium. We apply a recently proposed method to analytically determine the asymptotics of work distributions in Langevin systems to an one-dimensional model of single-molecule force spectroscopy. The results are in excellent agreement with numerical simulations, even in the centre of the distributions. We compare our findings with a recent proposal for an universal form of the asymptotics of work distributions in single-molecule experiments.