González-Adalid Pemartín, Isidoro Mompó Pavesi, Emanuel Gastón Lasanta Becerra, Antonio Martín-Mayor, Víctor Salas Martínez, Jesús 2025-09-26T12:31:08Z 2025-09-26T12:31:08Z 2024-03-15 0031-9007 https:doi.org10.1103PhysRevLett.132.117102 http://hdl.handle.net/11531/104832 Artículos en revistas Many systems, when initially placed far from equilibrium, exhibit surprising behavior in their attempt to equilibrate. Striking examples are the Mpemba effect and the cooling-heating asymmetry. These anomalous behaviors can be exploited to shorten the time needed to cool down (or heat up) a system. Though, a strategy to design these effects in mesoscopic systems is missing. We bring forward a description that allows us to formulate such strategies, and, along the way, makes natural these paradoxical behaviors. In particular, we study the evolution of macroscopic physical observables of systems freely relaxing under the influence of one or two instantaneous thermal quenches. The two crucial ingredients in our approach are timescale separation and a nonmonotonic temperature evolution of an important state function. We argue that both are generic features near a first-order transition. Our theory is exemplified with the one-dimensional Ising model in a magnetic field using analytic results and numerical experiments. en-GB Revista: Physical Review Letters, Periodo: 1, Volumen: online, Número: 11, Página inicial: 117102-1, Página final: 117102-6 Instituto de Investigación Tecnológica (IIT) Shortcuts of freely relaxing systems using equilibrium physical observables info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess Nonequilibrium statistical mechanics; Stochastic thermodynamics; Memory effects; Anomalous relaxation