Importance of nonequilibrium activity in information storage and processing in perceptron-based systems and systems with promiscuous interactions

Motivated by advances in the field of active matter where non-equilibrium forcing has been shown to activate new assembly pathways, here we study how non-equilibrium driving in prototypical memory formation models can affect their information processing capabilities. Building on previous work done with the simple spherical Hopfield model where activity was shown to improve the memory retrieval properties, we will discuss a model with promiscuous interactions among its constituents where dynamics with non-equilibrium noise sources can lead to a higher memory capacity than a zero-temperature equilibrium version that is not subject to any noise. We also demonstrate better signal retrieval properties using perceptron layers with nonequilibrium dynamics when compared to the equilibrium counterpart. Our results demonstrate the generality of the enhancement of memory capacity arising from non-equilibrium, active dynamics.