Relaxation Shortcuts through Boundary Coupling
Gianluca Teza, Ran Yaacoby, Oren Raz
Abstract
When a hot system cools down faster than an equivalent cold one, it exhibits the Mpemba effect (ME). This counterintuitive phenomenon was observed in several systems including water, magnetic alloys, and polymers. In most experiments the system is coupled to the bath through its boundaries, but all theories so far assumed bulk coupling. Here we build a general framework to characterize anomalous relaxations through boundary coupling, and present two emblematic setups: a diffusing particle and an Ising antiferromagnet. In the latter, we show that the ME can survive even arbitrarily weak couplings.
Topics & Concepts
Coupling (piping)PhysicsIsing modelRelaxation (psychology)Condensed matter physicsBoundary (topology)CounterintuitiveBoundary value problemStatistical physicsParticle (ecology)Quantum mechanicsMaterials scienceSocial psychologyMetallurgyMathematical analysisMathematicsOceanographyPsychologyGeologyAdvanced Thermodynamics and Statistical MechanicsTheoretical and Computational PhysicsQuantum many-body systems