Universality in activated barrier crossing

The thermal activation process by which a system passes from one local energy minimum to another by crossing an energy barrier is a recurring motif in physics, chemistry, and biology. For instance, biopolymer chains are typically modeled in terms of energy landscapes, with folded and unfolded configurations represented by two distinct wells separated by a barrier. The rate of transfer from the unfolded to folded state depends most importantly on the height of the barrier with respect to the temperature of the heat bath—but also in seemingly idiosyncratic ways on the details of the shape of the barrier. We consider the case of bias due to an external force, analogus to the pulling force applied in optical tweezer experiments on biopolymers. We identify universal behavior of the barrier crossing process and demonstrate that data collapse onto a universal curve can be achieved for simulated data over a wide variety of energy landscapes having barriers of different height and shape.