Cooperative surmounting of bottlenecks

The physics of activated escape of objects out of a metastable state plays a key role in diverse scientific areas involving chemical kinetics, diffusion and dislocation motion in solids, nucleation, electrical transport, motion of flux lines superconductors, charge density waves, and transport processes of macromolecules, to name but a few. The underlying activated processes present the multidimensional extension of the Kramers problem of a single Brownian particle. In comparison to the latter case, however, the dynamics ensuing from the interactions of many coupled units can lead to intriguing novel phenomena that are not present when only a single degree of freedom is involved. In this review we report on a variety of such phenomena that are exhibited by systems consisting of chains of interacting units in the presence of potential barriers. In the first part we consider recent developments in the case of a deterministic dynamics driving cooperative escape processes of coupled nonlinear units out of metastable states. The ability of chains of coupled units to undergo spontaneous conformational transitions can lead to a self-organised escape. The mechanism at work is that the energies of the units become re-arranged, while keeping the total energy conserved, in forming localised energy modes that in turn trigger the cooperative escape. We present scenarios of significantly enhanced noise-free escape rates if compared to the noise-assisted case. The second part deals with the collective directed transport of systems of interacting particles overcoming energetic barriers in periodic potential landscapes. Escape processes in both time-homogeneous and time-dependent driven systems are considered for the emergence of directed motion. It is shown that ballistic channels immersed in the associated high-dimensional phase space are the source for the directed long-range transport

Equilibrium and dynamical properties of two dimensional self-gravitating systems

A system of N classical particles in a 2D periodic cell interacting via long-range attractive potential is studied. For low energy density $U$ a collapsed phase is identified, while in the high energy limit the particles are homogeneously distributed. A phase transition from the collapsed to the homogeneous state occurs at critical energy U_c. A theoretical analysis within the canonical ensemble identifies such a transition as first order. But microcanonical simulations reveal a negative specific heat regime near $U_c$. The dynamical behaviour of the system is affected by this transition : below U_c anomalous diffusion is observed, while for U > U_c the motion of the particles is almost ballistic. In the collapsed phase, finite $N$-effects act like a noise source of variance O(1/N), that restores normal diffusion on a time scale diverging with N. As a consequence, the asymptotic diffusion coefficient will also diverge algebraically with N and superdiffusion will be observable at any time in the limit N \to \infty. A Lyapunov analysis reveals that for U > U_c the maximal exponent \lambda decreases proportionally to N^{-1/3} and vanishes in the mean-field limit. For sufficiently small energy, in spite of a clear non ergodicity of the system, a common scaling law \lambda \propto U^{1/2} is observed for any initial conditions.Comment: 17 pages, Revtex - 15 PS Figs - Subimitted to Physical Review E - Two column version with included figures : less paper waste

Transport in finite size systems: an exit time approach

In the framework of chaotic scattering we analyze passive tracer transport in finite systems. In particular, we study models with open streamlines and a finite number of recirculation zones. In the non trivial case with a small number of recirculation zones a description by mean of asymptotic quantities (such as the eddy diffusivity) is not appropriate. The non asymptotic properties of dispersion are characterized by means of the exit time statistics, which shows strong sensitivity on initial conditions. This yields a probability distribution function with long tails, making impossible a characterization in terms of a unique typical exit time.Comment: 16 RevTeX pages + 6 eps-figures include

Coexistence of absolute negative mobility and anomalous diffusion

Using extensive numerical studies we demonstrate that absolute negative mobility of a Brownian particle (i.e. the net motion into the direction opposite to a constant biasing force acting around zero bias) does coexist with anomalous diffusion. The latter is characterized in terms of a nonlinear scaling with time of the mean-square deviation of the particle position. Such anomalous diffusion covers "coherent" motion (i.e. the position dynamics x(t) approaches in evolving time a constant dispersion), ballistic diffusion, subdiffusion, superdiffusion and hyperdiffusion. In providing evidence for this coexistence we consider a paradigmatic model of an inertial Brownian particle moving in a one-dimensional symmetric periodic potential being driven by both an unbiased time-periodic force and a constant bias. This very setup allows for various sorts of different physical realizations

Chaotic Scattering Theory of Transport and Reaction-Rate Coefficients

The chaotic scattering theory is here extended to obtain escape-rate expressions for the transport coefficients appropriate for a simple classical fluid, or for a chemically reacting system. This theory allows various transport coefficients such as the coefficients of viscosity, thermal conductivity, etc., to be expressed in terms of the positive Lyapunov exponents and Kolmogorov-Sinai entropy of a set of phase space trajectories that take place on an appropriate fractal repeller. This work generalizes the previous results of Gaspard and Nicolis for the coefficient of diffusion of a particle moving in a fixed array of scatterers.Comment: 27 pages LaTeX, no figure