Engineered Swift Equilibration of a Brownian particle.
A fundamental and intrinsic property of any device or natural system is its relaxation time relax, which is the time it takes to return to equilibrium after the sudden change of a control parameter [1]. Reducingτrelax, is frequently necessary, and is often obtained by a complex feedback process. To overcome the limitations of such an approach, alternative methods based on driving have been recently demonstrated [2, 3], for isolated quantum and classical systems [4-9]. Their extension to open systems in contact with a thermostat is a stumbling block for applications. Here, we design a protocol, named Engineered Swift Equilibration (ESE), that shortcuts time-consuming relaxations, and we apply it to a Brownian particle trapped in an optical potential whose properties can be controlled in time. We implement the process experimentally, showing that it allows the system to reach equilibrium times faster than the natural equilibration rate. We also estimate the increase of the dissipated energy needed to get such a time reduction. The method paves the way for applications in micro and nano devices, where the reduction of operation time represents as substantial a challenge as miniaturization [10].
Laboratoire de Physique, CNRS UMR5672, Université de Lyon, École Normale Supérieure, 46 Allée d'Italie, 69364 Lyon, France.
Ignacio A
IA
Martínez
Laboratoire de Physique, CNRS UMR5672, Université de Lyon, École Normale Supérieure, 46 Allée d'Italie, 69364 Lyon, France.
Artyom
A
Petrosyan
Laboratoire Collisions Agrégats Réactivité, CNRS UMR5589, Université de Toulouse, 31062 Toulouse, France.
David
D
Guéry-Odelin
LPTMS, CNRS, Univ. Paris-Sud, Université Paris-Saclay, 91405 Orsay, France.
Emmanuel
E
Trizac
Laboratoire de Physique, CNRS UMR5672, Université de Lyon, École Normale Supérieure, 46 Allée d'Italie, 69364 Lyon, France.
Sergio
S
Ciliberto