Self-propulsion protocols for swift non-equilibrium state transitions and enhanced cooling in active systems
Statistical Mechanics
2026-04-22 v1 Soft Condensed Matter
Abstract
A control framework is proposed for inducing non-equilibrium state transitions in confined active matter, where the statistics of self-propulsion serve as the only control parameter. Positivity of the noise amplitudes and fundamental bounds on position-propulsion correlations define the admissible control space and impose speed-limits on transitions between non-equilibrium states. We show that non-stationary initial states facilitate additional speed-ups, corresponding to pre-loading the state with negative correlations. This enables active cooling protocols that outperform their passive counterparts.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2604.19252,
title = {Self-propulsion protocols for swift non-equilibrium state transitions and enhanced cooling in active systems},
author = {Kristian Stølevik Olsen and Hartmut Löwen},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2604.19252},
year = {2026}
}