Velocity dependence of friction and Kramers relaxation rates

Abstract

We study the influence of the velocity dependence of friction on the escape of a Brownian particle from the deep potential well ($E_{b} \gg k_{B}T$, $E_{b}$ is the barrier height, $k_{B}$ is the Boltzmann constant, $T$ is the bath temperature). The bath-induced relaxation is treated within the Rayleigh model (a heavy particle of mass $M$ in the bath of light particles of mass $m\ll M$) up to the terms of the order of $O(λ^{4})$, $λ^{2}=m/M\ll1$. The term $\sim 1$ is equivalent to the Fokker-Planck dissipative operator, and the term $\sim λ^{2}$ is responsible for the velocity dependence of friction. As expected, the correction to the Kramers escape rate in the overdamped limit is proportional to $λ^{2}$ and is small. The corresponding correction in the underdamped limit is proportional to $λ^{2}E_{b}/(k_{B}T)$ and is not necessarily small. We thus suggest that the effects due to the velocity-dependent friction may be of considerable importance in determining the rate of escape of an under- and moderately damped Brownian particle from a deep potential well, while they are of minor importance for an overdamped particle.