Context. Nucleation is considered to be the first step in dust and cloud formation atmospheres of asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars, exoplanets, brown dwarfs. In these environments particles grow macroscopic sizes when gas phase species condense onto condensation nuclei (CCNs). Understanding processes CCNs AGB stars important because that formed their outflows enrich interstellar medium. Alth...

In this article we address the problem of quantum tunneling of a non-Markovian Brownian particle away from thermal equilibrium. We calculate the Kramers escape rate at low temperature (including the zero temperature case) in the Smoluchowski limit (strong friction regime). Our main findings are: (i) our quantum escape rate is valid far from the thermal equilibrium and is non-Markovian, but it b...