Effect of dynamics on anomalous thermal relaxations and information exchange

TL;DR

This paper investigates the conditions under which the Mpemba effect occurs in Markov jump processes, providing analytical insights and demonstrating potential applications in Maxwell demon setups for improved thermodynamic performance.

Contribution

It offers analytical criteria for the Mpemba effect in reaction networks and explores its application in enhancing Maxwell demon cycle efficiency.

Findings

Strong Mpemba effect regions are non-overlapping for cooling and heating.

At most one Strong Mpemba temperature exists.

Utilizing the effect can shorten Maxwell demon cycles and increase power output.

Abstract

The Mpemba effect, an example of anomalous thermal relaxations, occurs when a system prepared at a hot temperature overtakes an identical system prepared at a warm temperature and cools down faster to the environment's temperature. We study the Mpemba effect in Markov jump processes on linear reaction networks as a function of the relaxation dynamics. The dynamics are characterized by a load distribution factor introduced to control the transition rates in a manner that obeys detailed balance. We provide analytical results and insights on when the Mpemba effect happens in the unimolecular reactions of three species as a function of the dynamics. In particular, we derive that the regions of the Strong Mpemba effect in cooling and heating are non-overlapping and that there is, at most, a single Strong Mpemba temperature. Next, we illustrate our results on a Maxwell demon setup, where we show that one can utilize the strong variant of the Mpemba effect to have shorter cycles of the Maxwell demon device, leading to increased power output, and stable device operation, without sacrificing efficiency.