Dissipation bounds the amplification of transition rates far from equilibrium

Abstract

Complex systems can convert energy imparted by nonequilibrium forces to regulate how quickly they transition between long lived states. While such behavior is ubiquitous in natural and synthetic systems, currently there is no general framework to relate the enhancement of a transition rate to the energy dissipated, or to bound the enhancement achievable for a given energy expenditure. We employ recent advances in statistical thermodynamics to build such a framework, which can be used to gain mechanistic insight on transitions far from equilibrium. We show that under general conditions, there is a basic speed-limit relating the typical excess heat dissipated throughout a transition and the rate amplification achievable. We illustrate this trade-off in canonical examples of diffusive barrier crossings in systems driven with autonomous and deterministic external forcing protocols. In both cases, we find that our speed limit tightly constrains the rate enhancement.

Main: 8 pages, 3 figures. Supplemental Material: 8 pages, 3 figures

References in corpus (4)

• When are active Brownian particles and run-and-tumble particles equivalent? Consequences for motility-induced phase separation
• Activated escape of a self-propelled particle from a metastable state
• Escape rate of active particles in the effective equilibrium approach
• Dissipation bounds the amplification of transition rates far from equilibrium

Cited by in corpus (19)

• Phase Diagram of Active Brownian Spheres: Crystallization and the Metastability of Motility-Induced Phase Separation
• Macroscopic Stochastic Thermodynamics
• Dissipation bounds the amplification of transition rates far from equilibrium
• Reinforcement learning of rare diffusive dynamics
• Principles of Low Dissipation Computing from a Stochastic Circuit Model
• Direct evaluation of rare events in active matter from variational path sampling
• Variational design principles for nonequilibrium colloidal assembly
• Shortcuts in stochastic systems and control of biophysical processes
• Variational deep learning of equilibrium transition path ensembles
• Evaluation of transition rates from nonequilibrium instantons
• Domain Wall Acceleration by Ultrafast Field Application: An Ab Initio-Based Molecular Dynamics Study
• Stochastic thermodynamic bounds on logical circuit operation
• Inferring entropy production from time-dependent moments
• Inferring equilibrium transition rates from nonequilibrium protocols
• Adaptive Monte Carlo augmented with normalizing flows
• Variational time reversal for free energy estimation in nonequilibrium steady states
• Role of interactions in non-equilibrium transformations
• Work statistics at first-passage times
• Kinetic reconstruction of free energies as a function of multiple order parameters