ABSTRACT
The theory of dynamic force spectroscopy derives from the general concept of thermal escape over an energy barrier under the influence of an external field. This
practice is not new and has several analogous counterparts in a wide variety of systems. What one often finds when considering the fundamental description of physical systems is that the same general dynamic model holds across a wide variety of processes. This is the case in forced bond rupture, where the description simplifies to a system in contact with its surroundings while an external forcing shifts the equilibrium from an initial state to some final state. The aim here is to formulate models that allow us to learn something useful about the system under study, preferably extrapolated to the equilibrium, unperturbed case.
