Kramers’ Turnover Theory: Improvement and Extension to Low Barriers

A personal perspective of the present status and future challenges facing thermal reaction rate theory

Reaction rate theory has been at the center of physical chemistry for well over one hundred years. The evolution of the theory is not only of historical interest. Reliable and accurate computation of reaction rates remains a challenge to this very day, especially in view of the development of quantum chemistry methods, which predict the relevant force fields. It is still not possible to compute the numerically exact rate on the fly when the system has more than at most a few dozen anharmonic degrees of freedom, so one must consider various approximate methods, not only from the practical point of view of constructing numerical algorithms but also on conceptual and formal levels. In this Perspective, I present some of the recent analytical results concerning leading order terms in an ℏ2m series expansion of the exact rate and their implications on various approximate theories. A second aspect has to do with the crossover temperature between tunneling and thermal activation. Using a uniform semiclassical transmission probability rather than the "primitive" semiclassical theory leads to the conclusion that there is no divergence problem associated with a "crossover temperature." If one defines a semiclassical crossover temperature as the point at which the tunneling energy of the instanton equals the barrier height, then it is a factor of two higher than its previous estimate based on the "primitive" semiclassical approximation. In the low temperature tunneling regime, the uniform semiclassical theory as well as the "primitive" semiclassical theory were based on the classical Euclidean action of a periodic orbit on the inverted potential. The uniform semiclassical theory wrongly predicts that the "half-point," which is the energy at which the transmission probability equals 1/2, for any barrier potential, is always the barrier energy. We describe here how augmenting the Euclidean action with constant terms of order ℏ2 can significantly improve the accuracy of the semiclassical theory and correct this deficiency. This also leads to a deep connection with and improvement of vibrational perturbation theory. The uniform semiclassical theory also enables an extension of the quantum version of Kramers' turnover theory to temperatures below the "crossover temperature." The implications of these recent advances on various approximate methods used to date are discussed at length, leading to the conclusion that reaction rate theory will continue to challenge us both on conceptual and practical levels for years to come.

Recent Developments in Kramers' Theory of Reaction Rates

In this short review, we provide an update of recent developments in Kramers' theory of reaction rates. After a brief introduction stressing the importance of this theory initially developed for chemical reactions, we briefly present the main theoretical formalism starting from the generalized Langevin equation and continue by showing the main points of the modern Pollak, Grabert and Hänggi theory. Kramers' theory is then sketched for quantum and classical surface diffusion. As an illustration the surface diffusion of Na atoms on a Cu(110) surface is discussed showing escape rates, jump distributions and diffusion coefficients as a function of reduced friction. Finally, some very recent applications of turnover theory to different fields such as nanoparticle levitation, microcavity polariton dynamics and simulation of reaction in liquids are presented. We end with several open problems and future challenges faced up by Kramers turnover theory.

Reactive flux theory for finite potential barriers

Motivated by developing a simple, accurate, and widely applicable approach to incorporate the finite barrier correction in analytical calculation of the escape rate, the reactive flux theory for finite barriers is proposed. For higher temperatures, instead of at the top of the barrier in the original reactive flux theory, the starting point of the trajectories of Brownian particles is removed into a position inside the potential well where the probability distribution can be regarded as an equilibrium one, and the potential barrier is replaced with an equivalent parabolic potential barrier. The equivalent potential barrier frequency can be obtained by two schemes. The population is also calculated more realistically for finite barriers. The theoretical method is tested by a Brownian particle moving in a cubic metastable potential and subjected to Gaussian white noise. The numerical simulation results confirm the approach satisfactorily until lower reduced barrier heights.

Activated quantum diffusion in a periodic potential above the crossover temperature

The recently improved Pollak, Grabert, and Hänggi (PGH) turnover theory for activated surface diffusion, including finite barrier effects, is extended and studied in the quantum domain. Analytic expressions are presented for the diffusion coefficient, escape rate, hopping distribution, and mean squared path length of particles initially trapped in one of the wells of a periodic potential, moving under the influence of a frictional and Gaussian random force. Tunneling is included by assuming incoherent quantum hopping at temperatures which are above the crossover temperature between deep tunneling and thermal activation. In the improved version of PGH theory as applied to activated surface diffusion, the potential governing the motion of the unstable mode remains periodic but with a scaled mass which increases with the friction strength. Application of the theory to a periodic cosine potential demonstrates that in the weak damping regime quantum diffusion is slower than classical diffusion due to above barrier quantum reflection which significantly shortens the mean squared path length as compared to the classical result. Finite barrier corrections increase this quantum suppression of diffusion or, equivalently, the inverse isotope effect, whereby the diffusion is faster for a heavier mass.

Finite-barrier corrections for multidimensional barriers in colored noise

The usual identification of reactive trajectories for the calculation of reaction rates requires very time-consuming simulations, particularly if the environment presents memory effects. In this paper, we develop a method that permits the identification of reactive trajectories in a system under the action of a stochastic colored driving. This method is based on the perturbative computation of the invariant structures that act as separatrices for reactivity. Furthermore, using this perturbative scheme, we have obtained a formally exact expression for the reaction rate in multidimensional systems coupled to colored noisy environments.

Memory-induced acceleration and slowdown of barrier crossing

We study the mean first-passage time τ_MFP for the barrier crossing of a single massive particle with non-Markovian memory by Langevin simulations in one dimension. In the Markovian limit of short memory time τ_Γ, the expected Kramers turnover between the overdamped (high-friction) and the inertial (low-friction) limits is recovered. Compared to the Markovian case, we find barrier crossing to be accelerated for intermediate memory time, while for long memory time, barrier crossing is slowed down and τ_MFP increases with τ_Γ as a power law τ_MFP∼τ_Γ². Both effects are derived from an asymptotic propagator analysis: while barrier crossing acceleration at intermediate memory can be understood as an effective particle mass reduction, slowing down for long memory is caused by the slow kinetics of energy diffusion. A simple and globally accurate heuristic formula for τ_MFP in terms of all relevant time scales of the system is presented and used to establish a scaling diagram featuring the Markovian overdamped and the Markovian inertial regimes, as well as the non-Markovian intermediate memory time regime where barrier crossing is accelerated and the non-Markovian long memory time regime where barrier crossing is slowed down.

Quantum Kramers model: Corrections to the linear response theory for continuous bath spectrum

Decay of the metastable state is analyzed within the quantum Kramers model in the weak-to-intermediate dissipation regime. The decay kinetics in this regime is determined by energy exchange between the unstable mode and the stable modes of thermal bath. In our previous paper [Phys. Rev. A 42, 4427 (1990)PLRAAN1050-294710.1103/PhysRevA.42.4427], Grabert's perturbative approach to well dynamics in the case of the discrete bath [Phys. Rev. Lett. 61, 1683 (1988)PRLTAO0031-900710.1103/PhysRevLett.61.1683] has been extended to account for the second order terms in the classical equations of motion (EOM) for the stable modes. Account of the secular terms reduces EOM for the stable modes to those of the forced oscillator with the time-dependent frequency (TDF oscillator). Analytic expression for the characteristic function of energy loss of the unstable mode has been derived in terms of the generating function of the transition probabilities for the quantum forced TDF oscillator. In this paper, the approach is further developed and applied to the case of the continuous frequency spectrum of the bath. The spectral density functions of the bath of stable modes are expressed in terms of the dissipative properties (the friction function) of the original bath. They simplify considerably for the one-dimensional systems, when the density of phonon states is constant. Explicit expressions for the fourth order corrections to the linear response theory result for the characteristic function of the energy loss and its cumulants are obtained for the particular case of the cubic potential with Ohmic (Markovian) dissipation. The range of validity of the perturbative approach in this case is determined (γ/ω_{b}<0.26), which includes the turnover region. The dominant correction to the linear response theory result is associated with the "work function" and leads to reduction of the average energy loss and its dispersion. This reduction increases with the increasing dissipation strength (up to ∼10%) within the range of validity of the approach. We have also calculated corrections to the depopulation factor and the escape rate for the quantum and for the classical Kramers models. Results for the classical escape rate are in very good agreement with the numerical simulations for high barriers. The results can serve as an additional proof of the robustness and accuracy of the linear response theory.

Kramers' theory for diffusion on a periodic potential

Kramers' turnover theory, based on the dynamics of the collective unstable normal mode (also known as PGH theory), is extended to the motion of a particle on a periodic potential interacting bilinearly with a dissipative harmonic bath. This is achieved by considering the small parameter of the problem to be the deviation of the collective bath mode from its value along the reaction coordinate, defined by the unstable normal mode. With this change, the effective potential along the unstable normal mode remains periodic, albeit with a renormalized mass, or equivalently a renormalized lattice length. Using second order classical perturbation theory, this not only enables the derivation of the hopping rates and the diffusion coefficient, but also the derivation of finite barrier corrections to the theory. The analytical results are tested against numerical simulation data for a simple cosine potential, ohmic friction, and different reduced barrier heights.