2021/04/26 by Avinash Kumar, Raphael Chetrite, Raphaël Chétrite +1
Chemistry · Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics #Brownian motion #Chemical physics #Chemistry #Colloid #Colloidal particle #Condensed matter physics #Inverse #Materials science #Mathematics #Particle (ecology) #Physical chemistry #Physics #Quantum mechanics #Statistical Mechanics and Entropy #Thermal #Thermodynamics #cond-mat.stat-mech #stochastic dynamics and bifurcation
paper · pdf · doi:10.1073/pnas.2118484119
published as PNAS 119, e2118484119 (2022) · 8 pages, 7 figures
arxiv created 2021/04/26 · openalex publication_date 2022/01/25 · arxiv updated 2022/01/28 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We report anomalous heating in a colloidal system, an experimental observation of the inverse Mpemba effect, where for two initial temperatures lower than the temperature of the thermal bath, the colder of the two systems heats up faster when coupled to the same thermal bath. For an overdamped, Brownian colloidal particle moving in a tilted double-well potential, we find a nonmonotonic dependence of the heating times on the initial temperature of the system. Entropic effects make the inverse Mpemba effect generically weaker-harder to observe-than the usual Mpemba effect (anomalous cooling). We also observe a strong version of anomalous heating, where a cold system heats up exponentially faster than systems prepared under slightly different conditions.