No Arabic abstract
We use computer simulation to study the layer-by-layer growth of particle structures in a lattice gas, taking the number of incorporated vacancies as a measure of the quality of the grown structure. By exploiting a dynamic scaling relation between structure quality in and out of equilibrium, we determine that the best quality of structure is obtained, for fixed observation time, with strong interactions and far-from-equilibrium growth conditions. This result contrasts with the usual assumption that weak interactions and mild nonequilibrium conditions are the best way to minimize errors during assembly.
Fluctuation-dissipation relations or theorems (FDTs) are fundamental for statistical physics and can be rigorously derived for equilibrium systems. Their applicability to non-equilibrium systems is, however, debated. Here, we simulate an active microrheology experiment, in which a spherical colloid is pulled with a constant external force through a fluid, creating near-equilibrium and far-from-equilibrium systems. We characterize the structural and dynamical properties of these systems, and reconstruct an effective generalized Langevin equation (GLE) for the colloid dynamics. Specifically, we test the validity of two FDTs: The first FDT relates the non-equilibrium response of a system to equilibrium correlation functions, and the second FDT relates the memory friction kernel in the GLE to the stochastic force. We find that the validity of the first FDT depends strongly on the strength of the external driving: it is fulfilled close to equilibrium and breaks down far from it. In contrast, we observe that the second FDT is always fulfilled. We provide a mathematical argument why this generally holds for memory kernels reconstructed from a deterministic Volterra equation for correlation functions, even for non-stationary non-equilibrium systems. Motivated by the Mori-Zwanzig formalism, we therefore suggest to impose an orthogonality constraint on the stochastic force, which is in fact equivalent to the validity of this Volterra equation. Such GLEs automatically satisfy the second FDT and are unique, which is desirable when using GLEs for coarse-grained modeling.
The observable properties of topological quantum matter are often described by topological field theories. We here demonstrate that this principle extends beyond thermal equilibrium. To this end, we construct a model of two-dimensional driven open dynamics with a Chern insulator steady state. Within a Keldysh field theory approach, we show that under mild assumptions - particle number conservation and purity of the stationary state - an abelian Chern-Simons theory describes its response to external perturbations. As a corollary, we predict chiral edge modes stabilized by a dissipative bulk.
The Jarzynski identity can be applied to instances when a microscopic system is pulled repeatedly but quickly along some coordinate, allowing the calculation of an equilibrium free energy profile along the pulling coordinate from a set of independent non-equilibrium trajectories. Using the formalism of Wiener stochastic path integrals in which we assign temperature-dependent weights to Langevin trajectories, we derive exact formulae for the temperature derivatives of the free energy profile. This leads naturally to analytical expressions for decomposing a free energy profile into equilibrium entropy and internal energy profiles from non-equilibrium pulling. This decomposition can be done from trajectories evolved at a unique temperature without repeating the measurement as done in finite-difference decompositions. Three distinct analytical expressions for the entropy-energy decomposition are derived: using a time-dependent generalization of the weighted histogram analysis method, a quasi harmonic spring limit, and a Feynman-Kac formula. The three novel formulae of reconstructing the pair of entropy-energy profiles are exemplified by Langevin simulations of a two-dimensional model system prototypical for force-induced biomolecular conformational changes. Connections to single-molecule experimental means to probe the functionals needed in the decomposition are suggested.
We construct a density functional for the lattice gas / Ising model on square and cubic lattices based on lattice fundamental measure theory. In order to treat the nearest-neighbor attractions between the lattice gas particles, the model is mapped to a multicomponent model of hard particles with additional lattice polymers where effective attractions between particles arise from the depletion effect. The lattice polymers are further treated via the introduction of polymer clusters (labelled by the numbers of polymer they contain) such that the model becomes a multicomponent model of particles and polymer clusters with nonadditive hard interactions. The density functional for this nonadditive hard model is constructed with lattice fundamental measure theory. The resulting bulk phase diagram recovers the Bethe-Peierls approximation and planar interface tensions show a considerable improvement compared to the standard mean-field functional and are close to simulation results in three dimensions. We demonstrate the existence of planar interface solutions at chemical potentials away from coexistence when the equimolar interface position is constrained to arbitrary real values.
We determine the nonlinear time-dependent response of a tracer on a lattice with randomly distributed hard obstacles as a force is switched on. The calculation is exact to first order in the obstacle density and holds for arbitrarily large forces. Whereas, on the impurity-free lattice, the nonlinear drift velocity in the stationary state is analytic in the driving force, interactions with impurities introduce logarithmic contributions beyond the linear regime. The long-time decay of the velocity toward the steady state is exponentially fast for any finite value of the force, in striking contrast to the power-law relaxation predicted within linear response. We discuss the range of validity of our analytic results by comparison to stochastic simulations.