Non-Markovian Effects on Overdamped Systems

Abstract: We study the consequences of adopting the memory dependent, non-Markovian, physics with the memory-less over-damped approximation usually employed to investigate Brownian particles. Due to the finite correlation time scale associated with the noise, the stationary behavior of the system is not described by the Boltzmann-Gibbs statistics. However, the presence of a very weak external white noise can be used to regularize the equilibrium properties. Surprisingly, the coupling to another bath effectively restores the dynamical aspects missed by the over-damped treatment.