Activated escape over oscillating barriers: The case of many dimensions

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new path-integral approach to calculate reaction rates in multidimensional, periodically driven escape problems under weak noise, validated by simulations.

Contribution

The paper develops a novel path-integral method for analyzing time-dependent escape rates in multidimensional systems with periodic driving, extending previous approaches.

Findings

Analytic expressions match Monte-Carlo data well

Method applies to sinusoidally driven particles in metastable potentials

Effective for a wide range of parameters

Abstract

We present a novel path-integral method for the determination of time-dependent and time-averaged reaction rates in multidimensional, periodically driven escape problems at weak thermal noise. The so obtained general expressions are evaluated explicitly for the situation of a sinusoidally driven, damped particle with inertia moving in a metastable, piecewise parabolic potential. A comparison with data from Monte-Carlo simulations yields a very good agreement with our analytic results over a wide parameter range.