Title:	Freezing Transition in the Barrier Crossing Rate of a Diffusing Particle
Authors:	Sabhapandit, Sanjib Majumdar, Satya N.
Issue Date:	Nov-2020
Publisher:	American Physical Society
Citation:	Physical Review Letters 2020, Vol.125, p200601
Abstract:	We study the decay rate θ(a) that characterizes the late time exponential decay of the first-passage probability density Fa(t|0)∼e−θ(a)t of a diffusing particle in a one dimensional confining potential U(x) , starting from the origin, to a position located at a>0 . For general confining potential U(x) we show that θ(a) , a measure of the barrier (located at a ) crossing rate, has three distinct behaviors as a function of a , depending on the tail of U(x) as x→−∞ . In particular, for potentials behaving as U(x)∼|x| when x→−∞ , we show that a novel freezing transition occurs at a critical value a=ac , i.e, θ(a) increases monotonically as a decreases till ac , and for a≤ac it freezes to θ(a)=θ(ac) . Our results are established using a general mapping to a quantum problem and by exact solution in three representative cases, supported by numerical simulations. We show that the freezing transition occurs when in the associated quantum problem, the gap between the ground state (bound) and the continuum of scattering states vanishes.
Description:	Open Access.
URI:	http://hdl.handle.net/2289/7584
ISSN:	0031-9007 1079-7114(Online)
Alternative Location:	https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2020arXiv200500024S/abstract https://arxiv.org/abs/2005.00024 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.125.200601
Copyright:	2020 American Physical Society
Additional information:	Supplementary Information Available
Appears in Collections:	Research Papers (TP)

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