We consider a broad class of Continuous Time Random Walks with large fluctuations effects in space and time distributions: a random walk with trapping, describing subdiffusion in disordered and glassy materials, and a Levy walk process, often used to
model superdiffusive effects in inhomogeneous materials. We derive the scaling form of the probability distributions and the asymptotic properties of all its moments in the presence of a field by two powerful techniques, based on matching conditions and on the estimate of the contribution of rare events to power-law tails in a field.
The condition of thermal equilibrium simplifies the theoretical treatment of fluctuations as found in the celebrated Einsteins relation between mobility and diffusivity for Brownian motion. Several recent theories relax the hypothesis of thermal equi
librium resulting in at least two main scenarios. With well separated timescales, as in aging glassy systems, equilibrium Fluctuation-Dissipation Theorem applies at each scale with its own effective temperature. With mixed timescales, as for example in active or granular fluids or in turbulence, temperature is no more well-defined, the dynamical nature of fluctuations fully emerges and a Generalized Fluctuation-Dissipation Theorem (GFDT) applies. Here, we study experimentally the mixed timescale regime by studying fluctuations and linear response in the Brownian motion of a rotating intruder immersed in a vibro-fluidized granular medium. Increasing the packing fraction, the system is moved from a dilute single-timescale regime toward a denser multiple-timescale stage. Einsteins relation holds in the former and is violated in the latter. The violation cannot be explained in terms of effective temperatures, while the GFDT is able to impute it to the emergence of a strong coupling between the intruder and the surrounding fluid. Direct experimental measurements confirm the development of spatial correlations in the system when the density is increased.
We use a relationship between response and correlation function in nonequilibrium systems to establish a connection between the heat production and the deviations from the equilibrium fluctuation-dissipation theorem. This scheme extends the Harada-Sa
sa formulation [Phys. Rev. Lett. 95, 130602 (2005)], obtained for Langevin equations in steady states, as it also holds for transient regimes and for discrete jump processes involving small entropic changes. Moreover, a general formulation includes two times and the new concepts of two-time work, kinetic energy, and of a two-time heat exchange that can be related to a nonequilibrium effective temperature. Numerical simulations of a chain of anharmonic oscillators and of a model for a molecular motor driven by ATP hydrolysis illustrate these points.
We study the behavior of a moving wall in contact with a particle gas and subjected to an external force. We compare the fluctuations of the system observed in the microcanonical and canonical ensembles, at varying the number of particles. Static and
dynamic correlations signal significant differences between the two ensembles. Furthermore, velocity-velocity correlations of the moving wall present a complex two-time relaxation which cannot be reproduced by a standard Langevin-like description. Quite remarkably, increasing the number of gas particles in an elongated geometry, we find a typical timescale, related to the interaction between the partitioning wall and the particles, which grows macroscopically.
We report the study of a new experimental granular Brownian motor, inspired to the one published in [Phys. Rev. Lett. 104, 248001 (2010)], but different in some ingredients. As in that previous work, the motor is constituted by a rotating pawl whose
surfaces break the rotation-inversion symmetry through alternated patches of different inelasticity, immersed in a gas of granular particles. The main novelty of our experimental setup is in the orientation of the main axis, which is parallel to the (vertical) direction of shaking of the granular fluid, guaranteeing an isotropic distribution for the velocities of colliding grains, characterized by a variance $v_0^2$. We also keep the granular system diluted, in order to compare with Boltzmann-equation-based kinetic theory. In agreement with theory, we observe for the first time the crucial role of Coulomb friction which induces two main regimes: (i) rare collisions (RC), with an average drift $ < omega > sim v_0^3$, and (ii) frequent collisions (FC), with $ < omega > sim v_0$. We also study the fluctuations of the angle spanned in a large time interval, $Delta theta$, which in the FC regime is proportional to the work done upon the motor. We observe that the Fluctuation Relation is satisfied with a slope which weakly depends on the relative collision frequency.
The effect of Coulomb friction is studied in the framework of collisional ratchets. It turns out that the average drift of these devices can be expressed as the combination of a term related to the lack of equipartition between the probe and the surr
ounding bath, and a term featuring the average frictional force. We illustrate this general result in the asymmetric Rayleigh piston, showing how Coulomb friction can induce a ratchet effect in a Brownian particle in contact with an equilibrium bath. An explicit analytical expression for the average velocity of the piston is obtained in the rare collision limit. Numerical simulations support the analytical findings.
