  The escape rate of a Brownian particle over a potential barrier is accurately
described by the Kramers theory. A quantitative theory explicitly taking the
activity of Brownian particles into account has been lacking due to the
inherently out-of-equilibrium nature of these particles. Using an effective
equilibrium approach [Farage et al., Phys. Rev. E 91, 042310 (2015)] we study
the escape rate of active particles over a potential barrier and compare our
analytical results with data from direct numerical simulation of the colored
noise Langevin equation. The effective equilibrium approach generates an
effective potential which, when used as input to Kramers rate theory, provides
results in excellent agreement with the simulation data.

Soft Condensed Matter