Everlasting initial memory threshold for rare events in equilibration processes

Conventional wisdom indicates that initial memory should decay away exponentially in time for general (noncritial) equilibration processes. In particular, time-integrated quantities such as heat are presumed to lose initial memory in a sufficiently long-time limit. However, we show that the large deviation function of time-integrated quantities may exhibit initial memory effect even in the infinite-time limit, if the system is initially prepared sufficiently far away from equilibrium. For a Brownian particle dynamics, as an example, we found a sharp finite threshold rigorously, beyond which the corresponding large deviation function contains everlasting initial memory. The physical origin for this phenomenon is explored with an intuitive argument and also from a toy model analysis. Our results can be applied to general nonequilibrium relaxation processes reaching (non)equilibrium steady states. DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevE.87.020104