Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: Can autonomous thermal switching outperform the best frozen barrier allocation while keeping system--auxiliary correlations arbitrarily small? We establish this relaxation advantage at fixed lowering budget and visible equilibrium, preserving joint detailed balance. On finite reversible networks, optimal fast switching mixes profiles concentrating the budget on single edges. A three-state model gives a strict gain and its finite-rate threshold. Faster switching preserves the gain while correlations vanish throughout relaxation. Collective and continuous models suggest a colloidal test.
Source: arXiv (Cornell University)
Institutions: Nanchang University, Jiangxi Normal University
Language: English
Subfield: Statistical and Nonlinear Physics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
Award: G4468829332
OpenAlex ID: W7223040360