Nonequilibrium fluctuation induced escape from a metastable state

TL;DR

This paper investigates how non-equilibrium bath conditions influence the escape dynamics from a metastable state, deriving a time-dependent escape rate that reveals non-exponential kinetics in an over-damped system.

Contribution

It introduces a microscopic model with a non-equilibrium bath and derives a closed-form analytical expression for the time-dependent escape rate.

Findings

Escape rate is non-stationary and non-exponential.

Derived analytical expression captures non-equilibrium effects.

Highlights the importance of bath state in metastable escape dynamics.

Abstract

Based on a simple microscopic model where the bath is in a non-equilibrium state we study the escape from a metastable state in the over-damped limit. Making use of Fokker-Planck-Smoluchowski description we derive the time dependent escape rate in the non-stationary regime in closed analytical form which brings on to fore a strong non-exponential kinetic of the system mode.