Scale-Free and Nonreciprocal Nonequilibrium Fluctuation-Induced Forces from a Localized Fluctuating Potential

Fluctuation-induced forces (FIFs) are ubiquitous in nature across a wide range of phenomena. Conventionally, their origin is intimately linked to the equilibrium fluctuations of the underlying medium. In this talk, we examine FIFs arising from out-of-equilibrium fluctuations. Remarkably, nonequilibrium FIFs between objects can be scale-free even when correlations in the underlying medium are short-ranged. Using field theoretic calculations and numerical simulations, we demonstrate this phenomenon in a thermally fluctuating medium driven by localized potentials with nonequilibrium fluctuations. Further analysis shows that these FIFs are nonreciprocal, suggesting that they may serve as a microscopic mechanism for macroscopic phenomena induced by non-reciprocity.