Origin of deviations from effective-gravity predictions at stronger heat conduction

Determine whether the asymmetric deviations from the effective-gravity prediction at relative saturation-pressure difference approximately 0.54 arise from heat-induced changes in transition barriers or from switching dynamics beyond the thermodynamic description.

Background

The paper finds that replacing the gravitational acceleration by the effective gravity accurately accounts for the configurational-transition shift and hysteresis response under weak heat conduction. However, at a temperature difference of 0.03, corresponding to a relative saturation-pressure difference of approximately 0.54, the nonequilibrium parameter is no longer small and the increasing- and decreasing-gravity scans depart asymmetrically from the leading-order effective-gravity prediction. The unresolved issue is whether these deviations reflect modified transition barriers caused by heat conduction or dynamical switching effects not captured by the global-thermodynamic description.