English

A Kac system interacting with two heat reservoirs

Mathematical Physics 2026-04-21 v2 Statistical Mechanics math.MP

Abstract

We study a system formed by MM particles moving in 3 dimension and interacting with 2 heat reservoirs with N>>MN>>M particles each. The system and the reservoirs evolve and interact via random collision described by a Kac-type master equation. The initial state of the reservoirs is given by 2 Maxwellian distributions at temperature T+T_+ and TT_-. We show that, for times much shorter than N\sqrt{N} the interaction with the reservoirs is well approximated by the interaction with 2 Maxwellian thermostats, that is, heat reservoirs with N=N=\infty. As a byproduct, if T+=TT_+=T_- we extend the results in \cite{BLTV} to particles in 3 dimension.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2508.13122,
  title  = {A Kac system interacting with two heat reservoirs},
  author = {Federico Bonetto and Michael Loss and Matthew Powell},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2508.13122},
  year   = {2026}
}
R2 v1 2026-07-01T04:55:13.628Z