Matching a diffusive and a kinetic approach for escape over a fluctuating barrier

Abstract

We study thermally driven escape over a dichotomously fluctuating barrier and present explicit formulas for the mean escape time in three limiting frequency domains. Our analysis is based on the chemically realistic case of large potential barrier, and modest fluctuation amplitude. When the fluctuation frequency is small compared to the time scale for adiabatic adjustment, which includes the low and intermediate frequency regimes, a kinetic approximation reproduces the Fokker-Planck results.