Work fluctuations for a Brownian particle in a harmonic trap with fluctuating locations

Arnab Pal, Sanjib Sabhapandit

Published 2012-12-04, updated 2013-02-25Version 2

We consider a Brownian particle in a harmonic trap. The location of the trap is modulated according to an Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process. We investigate the fluctuation of the work done by the modulated trap on the Brownian particle in a given time interval in the steady state. We compute the large deviation as well as the complete asymptotic form of the probability density function of the work done. The theoretical asymptotic forms of the probability density function are in very good agreement with the numerics. We also discuss the validity of the fluctuation theorem for this system.