Browsing by Author "Fekade, Solomon"

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    Effect of Local Heating on Escape and Equilibration Rates in a Bistable Potential
    (Addis Ababa University, 2000-06) Fekade, Solomon; Bekele, Mulugeta (PhD)
    The detailed kinetic aspect of the Landauer's blow-torch theorem is investigated for two models of non-homogeneous media, proposed by Landauer and by van Kampen. For both models, we considered a symmetric W-potential with hot locality temperature profile and applied the Brinkman's method to obtain analytic expressions for the escape and equilibration rates. The escape and equilibration rates are functions of strength, position and width of the hot locality, and the barrier height. We find that the presence of the hot locality has improved the equilibration rates for both models. The calculation also reveals that the equilibration rate for Landauer's model has an optimal position where it gets its maximum value while for the van Kampen's model it is an increasing function of position