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arXiv · 1712.01837

Large deviations in the presence of cooperativity and slow dynamics

Stephen Whitelam
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Abstract

We study simple models of intermittency, involving switching between two states, within the dynamical large-deviation formalism. Singularities appear in the formalism when switching is cooperative, or when its basic timescale diverges. In the first case the unbiased trajectory distribution undergoes a symmetry breaking, leading to a change of shape of the large-deviation rate function for a particular dynamical observable. In the second case the symmetry of the unbiased trajectory distribution remains unbroken. Comparison of these models suggests that singularities of the dynamical large-deviation formalism can signal the dynamical equivalent of an equilibrium phase transition, but do not necessarily do so.

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Stephen Whitelam. 2018-05-25. Large deviations in the presence of cooperativity and slow dynamics. https://doi.org/10.1103/physreve.97.062109

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