Direct Measurement of Kramers Turnover with a Levitated Nanoparticle

Understand

Understanding the thermally activated escape from a metastable state is at the heart of important phenomena such as the folding dynamics of proteins, the kinetics of chemical reactions or the stability of mechanical systems.

• In 1940 Kramers calculated escape rates both in the high damping and the low damping regime and suggested that the rate must have a maximum for intermediate damping.
• This phenomenon, today known as the Kramers turnover, has triggered important theoretical and numerical studies.
• However, to date there is no direct and quantitative experimental verification of this turnover.