No Arabic abstract
The occurrence of stochastic resonance in bistable systems undergoing anomalous diffusions, which arise from density-dependent fluctuations, is investigated with emphasis on the analytical formulation of the problem as well as a possible analytical derivation of key quantifiers of stochastic resonance. The nonlinear Fokker-Planck equation describing the system dynamics, together with the corresponding Ito-Langevin equation, are formulated. In the linear-response regime analytical expressions of the spectral amplification, of the signal-to-noise ratio and of the hysteresis loop area are derived as quantifiers of stochastic resonance. These quantifiers are found to be strongly dependent on the parameters controlling the type of diffusion, in particular the peak characterizing the signal-to-noise ratio occurs only in close ranges of parameters. Results introduce the relevant information that taking into consideration the interactions of anomalous diffusive systems with a periodic signal, can provide a better understanding of the physics of stochastic resonance in bistable systems driven by periodic forces.
The asymptotic tails of the probability distributions of thermodynamic quantities convey important information about the physics of nanoscopic systems driven out of equilibrium. We apply a recently proposed method to analytically determine the asymptotics of work distributions in Langevin systems to an one-dimensional model of single-molecule force spectroscopy. The results are in excellent agreement with numerical simulations, even in the centre of the distributions. We compare our findings with a recent proposal for an universal form of the asymptotics of work distributions in single-molecule experiments.
Motivated to understand the asymptotic behavior of periodically driven thermodynamic systems, we study the prototypical example of Brownian particle, overdamped and underdamped, in harmonic potentials subjected to periodic driving. The harmonic strength and the coefficients of drift and diffusion are all taken to be $T$-periodic. We obtain the asymptotic distributions almost exactly treating driving nonperturbatively. In the underdamped case, we exploit the underlying $SL_2$ symmetry to obtain the asymptotic state, and study the dynamics and fluctuations of energies and entropy. We further obtain the two-time correlation functions, and investigate the responses to drift and diffusion perturbations in the presence of driving.
We analyze several aspects of the phenomenon of stochastic resonance in reaction-diffusion systems, exploiting the nonequilibrium potentials framework. The generalization of this formalism (sketched in the appendix) to extended systems is first carried out in the context of a simplified scalar model, for which stationary patterns can be found analytically. We first show how system-size stochastic resonance arises naturally in this framework, and then how the phenomenon of array-enhanced stochastic resonance can be further enhanced by letting the diffusion coefficient depend on the field. A yet less trivial generalization is exemplified by a stylized version of the FitzHugh-Nagumo system, a paradigm of the activator-inhibitor class. After discussing for this system the second aspect enumerated above, we derive from it -through an adiabatic-like elimination of the inhibitor field- an effective scalar model that includes a nonlocal contribution. Studying the role played by the range of the nonlocal kernel and its effect on stochastic resonance, we find an optimal range that maximizes the systems response.
A study of the self-organization of vacancy clusters in irradiated materials is presented. Using a continuum stochastic model we take into account dynamics of point defects and their sinks with elastic interactions of vacancies. Dynamics of vacancy clusters formation is studied analytically and numerically under conditions related to irradiation in both reactors and accelerators. We have shown a difference in patterning dynamics and studied the external noise influence related to fluctuation in a defect production rate. Applying our approach to pure nickel irradiated under different conditions we have shown that vacancy clusters having a linear size 6 nm can arrange in statistical periodic structure with nano-meter range. We have found that linear size of vacancy clusters at accelerator conditions decreases down to 20%, whereas a period of vacancy clusters reduces to 6.5%.
We consider the performance of periodically driven stochastic heat engines in the linear response regime. Reaching the theoretical bounds for efficiency and efficiency at maximum power typically requires full control over the design and the driving of the system. We develop a framework which allows to quantify the role that limited control over the system has on the performance. Specifically, we show that optimizing the driving entering the work extraction for a given temperature protocol leads to a universal, one-parameter dependence for both maximum efficiency and maximum power as a function of efficiency. In particular, we show that reaching Carnot efficiency (and, hence, Curzon-Ahlborn efficiency at maximum power) requires to have control over the amplitude of the full Hamiltonian of the system. Since the kinetic energy cannot be controlled by an external parameter, heat engines based on underdamped dynamics can typically not reach Carnot efficiency. We illustrate our general theory with a paradigmatic case study of a heat engine consisting of an underdamped charged particle in a modulated two-dimensional harmonic trap in the presence of a magnetic field.