Effective temperature for an intermittent bistable potential.

Thermodynamics of far-from-equilibrium systems often require measurement of effective parameters such as temperature. Whether such approach is valid for the general case of resetting protocols, active systems, or of confined systems under time-varying fields is still under investigation. We report on the effect of switching ON-OFF of an asymmetric bistable potential to the mean first passage time (MFPT) of a probed particle to go from one potential minima to the other.

Reversibility in nonequilibrium steady states as a measure of distance from equilibrium.

From the detailed balance-like relation, we propose a measure, K^{*}, of a nonequilibrium steady-state (NESS) distance from equilibrium. We investigate in particular the NESS of a particle confined in a time-dependent harmonic potential of constant stiffness but with an ON-OFF state following a telegraph process. Experimental results coupled with simulations show that K^{*} increases at slow switching rates (far from equilibrium) and approaches to zero at equilibrium conditions.

Dynamics of a ratchet gear powered by an active granular bath.

Recent experiments show universal features of ratchet gear dynamics that are powered by different types of active baths. We investigate further for the case of a ratchet gear in a bath of self-propelling granular rods (SPRs). The resulting angular velocity was found to follow a nonmonotonic dependence to the SPR concentration similar to the observation from other active bath systems.