Efficient two-dimensional control of barrier crossing

Abstract

Driven barrier crossings are pervasive in optical-trapping experiments and steered molecular-dynamics simulations. Despite the high fidelity of control, the freedom in the choice of driving protocol is rarely exploited to improve efficiency. We design protocols that reduce dissipation for rapidly driven barrier crossing under two-dimensional control of a harmonic trapping potential, controlling both trap center and stiffness. For fast driving, the minimum-dissipation protocol jumps halfway between the control-parameter endpoints. For slow driving, the minimum-dissipation protocol generically slows down and tightens the trap as it crosses the barrier, resulting in both significant energy savings and increased flux compared to naive and one-dimensional protocols (that only change trap center). Combining fast and slow results, we design protocols that improve performance at all speeds.

References in corpus (9)

• Rare events and the convergence of exponentially averaged work values
• Extracting work from a single heat bath through feedback
• Finite-time Landauer principle
• Optimal driving of isothermal processes close to equilibrium
• Thermodynamic control -- an old paradigm with new applications
• Thermodynamic geometry of minimum-dissipation driven barrier crossing
• Steps minimize dissipation in rapidly driven stochastic systems
• Skewed Thermodynamic Geometry and Optimal Free Energy Estimation
• Multidimensional minimum-work control of a 2D Ising model

Cited by in corpus (7)

• Optimal Control in Stochastic Thermodynamics
• Optimal Control of the F${}_1$-ATPase Molecular Motor
• Performance of optimal linear-response processes in driven Brownian motion far from equilibrium
• Optimal control with a strong harmonic trap
• Failure of the geometric approach prediction of excess work scaling for open and isolated quantum systems
• Connections between efficient control and spontaneous transitions in an Ising model
• Optimal finite-time processes in weakly driven overdamped Brownian motion