The SLAM - Smart, Living, & Active Matter - initiative unites theory and experimental groups of the Leiden Institute of Physics. It currently gathers the groups of Luca Giomi, Louise Jawerth, Daniela Kraft, Martin van Hecke, Silke Henkes and Alexandre Morin.
Title Anomalous Thermal Relaxation Phenomena in Physical Systems
Abstract Rapid heating or cooling of a physical system can lead to unexpected thermal relaxation behavior. One intriguing example is the Mpemba effect, in which a system initially at a higher temperature cools faster than an identical system starting at a lower temperature. A similar reversal can also occur during heating. Ordinarily, we expect a system with a smaller temperature difference from its environment to equilibrate more quickly, but this intuition does not always hold. In this talk, I will survey recent research on the Mpemba effect and highlight examples of Mpemba-like behavior in both classical and quantum systems. I will also present theoretical results on the emergence of the Mpemba effect in overdamped Langevin dynamics and in Markov jump processes.